


Tender Moments

by Lilyliegh



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cats, Cats, Domestic, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Found Family, Gen, Happy Ending, Platonic Yuusaku & Takeru, Ryouken is the cat, There Is Plot Here I Promise, many many adorable moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-02-28 11:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18755689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilyliegh/pseuds/Lilyliegh
Summary: If you feed the stray cat, they'll come back looking for more food. Yuusaku knows this truth well and warns Kusanagi against feeding them. But then a white cat followshimhome one night after work, and the situation becomes much more complicated. Mainly, he can't figure out how to get the cat to leave.Written for the event Let's Make Yuusaku Smile 2019.





	1. Why You Don't Feed Strays

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to the lovely Hunter13Hawkie for the wonderful idea to write an indulgent cat AU. Technically, this fic was meant to be based on the series _My Roommate Is a Cat_ but I've only seen a handful of episodes of the series, so think of this as more of a blend of various series featuring cats plus a grab-bag of general fluff. 
> 
> also thank you to the coordinator of the event Let's Make Yuusaku Smile 2019 - without this event, this fic would have been much shorter ^^;;

The nice thing about working at Kusanagi's shop, Yuusaku mused, was that there was just enough to do to keep him busy, but not enough to overwork him. If he was alone in the truck, he might have had different thoughts. But while Kusanagi handled the majority of the payments, he prepared the orders. Back when he had begun working at Cafe Nagi, there were three items on the list: hot dog, chili dog, and coffee. Nowadays, it was five: hot dog, chili dog, veggie dog, coffee, tea.

Kusanagi considered it a massive improvement.

"See, Yuusaku," he said as he leaned against the counters. "People really don't like change. They think they do, and once in a blue moon I'll buy pickles or something weird to put on the hotdog. But if I expand the menu, folks here are just going to pick the same dish every single time." His grin widened. "Sort of like someone else I know."

Yuusaku rolled his eyes. He ducked back behind the truck to pop the last of his hotdog bun into his mouth. Ever since he'd started working part-time at Cafe Nagi—a whole four years ago—he'd been eating plain buns. No dressing, no toppings, and no hot dog itself.

He frowned as Kusanagi's words settled in his mind. "Pickles?"

"Sure. People love changes."

"But ... pickles?" He glanced back at the truck's wares. Tucked into one of the walls was a spacious, albeit  _ messy,  _ pantry, toppling from the weight of bags of hotdog buns, containers of coffee, and several cans of tomato sauce and beans. Nowhere did he see any jars of pickles, but crammed to the corner and semi-hidden by more bun bags was a tower of cans of ...

"Tuna?"

Kusanagi shrugged. "Why not?" He turned away to take a customer's order, and Yuusaku returned to prepare the hotdog and tea. When he was done, Kusanagi was wiping his hands on his apron.

"What?" Kusanagi said. "If people don't like it, I just give it away anyways."

At this, Yuusaku raised an eyebrow. He'd never closed shop with Kusanagi, mainly because Cafe Nagi stayed open so long as there were customers frequenting the truck. He'd never wanted to work late into the night anyways, but it had also never occurred to him just what closing-shop entailed. In particular, he'd never asked just what Kusanagi did with the leftovers.

"To the strays," Kusanagi said with a wave of his hand. "They come round at night and wait for me to feed them."

"You ... feed the strays?"

"Course."

Yuusaku pursed his lips together and sighed out his nose the way an adult might start their condescending lecture to a teenager. "If you feed the strays, they will return."

Kusanagi snapped his fingers. "And that’s why I do it. Besides, I always have leftovers." Playfully, he bumped shoulders with Yuusaku, then weaved to the side to stir the chili pots and tousle the peppers and onions in a refrigerated container. "If you're so curious, you should stay until the end of the shift. They wait at the back of the truck away from customers, and there's always five or six of them."

"Of them?" he asked, and silently he prayed there were no raccoons, badgers, or other, larger predators waiting at the back of the truck. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare would already have a field day if they found out Kusanagi was feeding strays from the back of his truck, but Yuusaku also feared for Kusanagi himself. What if a rabid animal attacked him? What if he caught a disease? He didn't know much about animals and which diseases they carried, but any animal lurking through Den City's streets would be ill and unwashed.

Kusanagi chuckled as he restocked the buns. "Oh, Yuusaku."

Heat burned on his cheeks. He reached for one of the dish cloths hanging on the stove and began sweeping bread crumbs from the counter into his cupped hand, even though there were only three tiny, visible nibbles. He needed something to do with his hands. Something that would stop the blush threatening to cover his entire face.

"They're such adorable strays though."

Was ... was that a baby-talk voice? From Kusanagi?

Yuusaku peered through his bangs.

Kusanagi's grin caught him like a net over his head.

"I've always wanted a pet," Kusanagi said. His clasped hands were pressed to his chest, right over his heart. Even in the artificial truck lights, his eyes  _ shimmered.  _ In any other situation, Yuusaku would have listened fervently; he would have wanted Kusanagi to keep talking. But they were two grown men talking about feeding strays, and the last time Kusanagi had gotten so choked up was when there was a devilishly-good sale on hotdogs at the store, and he'd thrown out his weekly bulk order just to buy the grocery store brand.

At the moment, Kusanagi looked even more choked up.

"I don't have time for a pet, not with running Cafe Nagi. Not to mention there isn't room here for a pet—then I'd really get fired from my job. But ... isn't it so sweet that the kitties come to me at the end of the day, like I'm their mother?"

"K-kitties?" Kusanagi was getting worked up over stray cats pawing and meowing at his back door. Yuusaku knew even less about stray cats than stray dogs, but any stray would return to a dewy-eyed man feeding them leftover hotdogs and apparently cans of tuna. The strays didn't truly care about him. They just knew that a good day's meal came from the white truck parked out along Stardust Road.

But he didn't have it in him to criticise Kusanagi. Anyone else he would have spoke his mind to, and on occasion Kusanagi heard his critiques too, such as the rebuttal on having a Weiner Dog Mascot dancing out front of the shop. But Kusanagi, with near-tears in his eyes and holding a tea towel like he was cradling a kitten, was the happiest he'd even been on a Saturday, the final shift for Cafe Nagi. He couldn't stomp on his friend's pride.

"Kitties?" he tried again, holding back the suspicion in his tone.

"Well." Kusanagi chuckled and folded the tea towel. "I'd say they're all full-grown cats, but to me they can all be kitties. Have to be at least six of them every night, sometimes more, sometimes less ... Mostly more. I swear they bring a friend each time."

Yuusaku held his lip between his teeth, forcing himself not to blurt out the first callous remark that came to mind. If Kusanagi wanted to feed strays, it was not his place to judge. They donated food to the local shelter to begin with, so it wasn't as if Kusanagi was tossing out perfectly-fine buns and hotdogs to strays rather than giving the leftovers to shelters. If the strays were a problem in the community, animal patrols would have caught them already. Throwing out the first critique that came to mind would be ignorant of the good Kusanagi was doing. Or so he tried to tell himself as Kusanagi bunched his shoulders up to his ears and cooed and acted like a damn fool in the back of the truck.

"I have photos of them, Yuusaku, here, come see! They let me take a photo a few nights ago." Kusanagi beckoned him over with a hurried wave of his hand. On his duel disk's screen was an entire  _ album  _ of cat photos, all taken from the back of the truck and featuring various strays eating out of two red bowls that looked suspiciously like the bowls Yuusaku used to drink miso soup stock from. The other detail he noticed was that there seemed like far, far more than six different cats in the photos. If he had to estimate, the number was closer to twenty.

Kusanagi enlarged the first photo in the album and zoomed in on a small, black and white cat. If he were more of a cat person, he would have known just what kind of cat it was, but with his limited knowledge, it just seemed like a basic cat. Black and white, four paws, two ears. Hungry mouth open and munching away on a hotdog.

"This one here comes every day, I swear," Kusanagi said. "She's a little fiesty one, always pushing to the front of the pack. She must eat a full hotdog alone. And this one." He swiped several photos back and zoomed in on an orange cat. "Gentlest soul I have ever come across. Eats like a damn  _ horse  _ though. Not sure how this cat isn't fat yet. Ooh, this little grey one! Pretty sure it's a kitten. And maybe this other black one is its sibling ... not sure if cats can have different coloured kittens."

Yuusaku swallowed thickly. "And all these cats come ...?"

"Yeah." Kusanagi scrubbed at the back of his neck. "Look, if you stay for the end of the shift, I'll introduce you to them all. I promise, they come every night."

He had no doubt the strays would all be there, but the last place he wanted to be was surrounded by dirty animals no doubt crawling through the truck.

Just then, Kusanagi's brows furrowed low over his brown eyes. "Wait, you're not allergic, are you? You haven't been feeling ill, wheezing, itchy—”

"No, I'm fine."

"Ah, good. Jin's terribly allergic to them. Has to take medicine just to come out here now, but ..." He shrugged and smiled. "Jin still thinks it's amazing all those kitties flock to me."

"Amazing," Yuusaku said under his breath. "But I have to decline. I need to go home tonight."

Whether Kusanagi knew he was making up an excuse—and a lame one at that, without any proper reasoning but just simply an unspoken 'I have better things to do'—he said nothing more than, "No worries, you can always see them another time. I'm sure they'll be coming for the rest of my career."

_ Yes, they will,  _ Yuusaku thought.

For the rest of the shift, he cleaned and cooked with his mind focused on the tasks at hand. From time to time he or Kusanagi would share a story, but as long-time friends and co-workers, they had become used to each other's silence. They could go hours without either of them needing to fill the truck with redundant chatter, only to then burst into a colourful story. Often it was Kusanagi doing the talking and him doing the listening, but if a rant struck him, courtesy of Link Vrains' server malfunctions a la SOL Technologies' incompetency, he could march up and down the truck for minutes before he settled back in a huff.

But for this shift, whenever they spoke up, the topic always seemed to curve back to cats, specifically the mangy strays in the photos. Kusanagi would show him more photos, or tell him a story about the kitties, or even replicate their "adorable" mewling. Yuusaku didn't care much for kittens, but by the end of the shift, he was fortunate to go home for the night and think of anything  _ but  _ cats.

"Have a good day off!" Kusanagi told him from the truck.

Yuusaku hiked his backpack strap over his shoulder and nodded. The night was still young, but with the approaching darkness the street lights had turn on, and their bright, yellow light cast weary shadows over the plaza and down the road. In summer when it would still be daylight at seven o'clock, he would often wander down to the beach and sit on an empty part of the shore. But with autumn in full season, complete with crinkly orange leaves, chilly winds, and fast nightfalls, the only choice was to walk back to his apartment and tuck under his duvet.

He headed down the road from the plaza and through the little park just off from the road. During the day, he would hear children chasing each other through the grab or climbing atop the metal structure, but they had long since gone home. Instead, seated in a halo of creamy light was a single, white cat, fluffy around its head and ears but growing sleeker across the body. A pair of large, blue eyes stared at him.

Wonderful. One of Kusanagi's strays was already waiting for its meal.

Yuusaku marched through the park, hood up, hands in his pockets. The cold wind pricked at any exposed skin, and he regretted wearing just a light jacket.

_ Mew. _

_ Meew. _

_ Mee— _

Yuusaku leapt out of the way before he kicked the white cat that shot in front of his legs like a bullet. The cat kept running and ducked under a park bench. Its little white body puffed out like a cloud, and its bright eyes stared back.

Yuusaku shook himself and kept watching. Damn cat almost got itself kicked—

_ Mew. _

He stopped. Spun on his heel.

"What?"

The cat had come closer. Not far, as it didn't seem to trust him, but enough that Yuusaku could tell that it  _ wanted  _ something. Discreetly, he sniffed his palms for any lingering hot dogs smells, but he found only Kusanagi's fragrant lavender soap. Would that attract strays? Unlikely, but the cat was still crouched in front of him like a dropped loaf of white bread, and its all-too-expectant gaze was on him.

He spun back on his heel and headed out of the park. The next time the cat meowed, he didn't turn around. Unfortunately, Kusanagi's night time feeding must have trained all the local strays to think that any human would feed them. If he walked far enough away, the stray would get the picture and march right back to Cafe Nagi for its midnight feast.

Only the cat didn't leave him alone. Didn't stray more than ten feet away from him. It walked down the road on its little white paws, occasionally meowing or mewling or making some other unholy, annoying sound. When Yuusaku had to cross the road, the cat huddled under a tree or lamppost and followed him again when it was safe to cross and remain far enough away from him. Yuusaku refused to look at it the entire time.

The stray would get the picture.

He made it all the way to his front door without the cat stopping once. He turned the key to the door but held still. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the white cat sitting at the top of the outdoor stairs leading along the building to the second-floor apartments. At most, there was ten feet of space between them.

The cat nestled down once more into a little loaf.

Yuusaku sighed and slipped through the door, closing it behind him. He fumbled in the darkness to kick off his shoes at the same time as his hand tapped the dark wall for the light switch. He found it just as he got his other shoe off, and tiredly he pushed them to the wall and stepped over the genkan. Dribbles of moonlight came through the open window in his living room and kitchen, squished together into one room. His bedroom and bathroom were against the opposite wall. He hadn't slept in his bedroom all week, often passing out on the couch after staying up all night on his computer.

Tonight would be no different.

He grabbed a can of cold coffee from the fridge and a reheatable packet of rice from the cupboard, and brought both of them to the couch once they meal was ready. Last night's activities were still open across various tabs: search histories of gaming strategy guides and deck building sets; news articles for upcoming decks and cards, and SOL Technologies' recent achievements in the virtual world community. His duel disk lie next to his computer, alight with several messages from Takeru about dueling tonight.

Sighing, he spooned rice into his mouth.

And promptly choked, spitting rice granules across his lap, table,  _ and  _ keyboard.

The damn white cat was sitting form outside his window. It would have been better if it were doing something, say pawing or crying, but now it was simply staring at him. Voidless eyes. If he remembered correctly, this was how horror stories begun.

But he was also preoccupied with guzzling water before he heaved up a lung. His throat burned by the time the choking ceased, and he wiped his lips with his sleeve and focused on taking smaller bites and keeping his eyes on his keyboard. There was nothing to worry about ...

Curiously, he lifted his head.

The cat wasn't outside of the window. It was  _ inside _ the house, seated against the window, once more a little, white loaf.

His blood ran dry. Just ... how? Had it snuck into the house before he closed the door? He never left a window open unless he needed to clear smoke from the kitchen during one of the rare times he cooked dinner, and unless there was a new hole in his apartment wall, the only likely reason was that the damn stray had slipped in faster than he could have closed the door. The feat seemed impossible, but the cat was still there, watching him with holes for eyes.

His duel disk was on the table, blinking with Takeru's notifications. If the cat had climbed up onto the window without him noticing, and hadn't moved since then, small movements shouldn't have bothered it. Yuusaku picked up his duel disk. Paused. Kusanagi had experience with strays, but he wouldn't know how to get them  _ out  _ of the house, only how to lure them in. Counterintuitive. Takeru ... Takeru had two lizards.

Sighing, he crouched in front of the computer and typed into the search bar:  _ How to get strays out of house. _

The first option was pest control. As much as Yuusaku hated strays, he wasn't about to have strangers come knocking on his door at this hour and get the cat out. He'd peopled plenty today.

The second option was luring the pet out. On the website were various treats cats might enjoy, and instructions to leave a trail for them out of the house where you could lock the door behind them. Though he'd berated Kusanagi for feeding the strays, this situation was different: he wasn't feeding them, he was luring this white cat away.  In his cupboards he found a package of plain crackers that he hoped would entice the stray. Once broken into tiny pieces, he lined them from five or so feet away from the cat's perch to the front door, and then a larger pile of crumbs out on the landing, If this was one of Kusanagi's hungry strays, it would be looking for its meal.

Ten minutes later and the cat hadn't  _ moved.  _ Yuusaku sighed into his fist as he sat on the counter. The living room wasn't all that wide, at most six steps, but he'd set up shop at the furthest end of the room; the only other option was to hide away in the bedroom or bathroom and let the pest be, but he also didn't want to lose it. The fear of losing the cat in his apartment seemed much worse than having it in his house, and he didn’t want to spend all night looking for a creature no larger than a laptop.

From across the room, he could still see the open web page.

_ DO NOT PICK UP A STRAY CAT,  _ it read in bolded letters. He was tempted to try his luck on that matter.

All the while, the white stray hadn't budged. It remained as a dense ball, sides puffed out. There was no collar round its neck. Other than white fur, its single distinguishing feature was a grey-blue tuft of fur above his eyebrow that was only visible in direct light. On the web there were no lost white cat advertisements, so this truly was a stray.

The first option of calling pest control began to sound even more tempting. If they could take the stray out of his house, he'd get a decent's night rest. Long-term, it would be better. Short-term, a nightmare. He sighed into his hands and slouched forward. Normally at this hour he would be logged into Link Vrains and dueling with Takeru, or browsing the general web and ignoring Naoki's incessant pings for duel requests. But if he logged into Link Vrains, he wouldn't be able to see the cat.

Grumbling, he marched back to the couch and sat down in front of the computer. The cat's wide, blue eyes stared back at him, following every single one of his movements. It hadn't moved a muscle, and something within its hunched form and flat ears made it seem ... scared. All the cats Kusanagi had showed him photos of had pricked tails and closed eyes. This cat was curled in a tight ball, tail curled round it, and ears ... flat on either side of its head

_ Cat body language,  _ he googled.

Afraid, the website said. The damn cat was scared of him.

He leaned back on the couch with yet another heavy sigh. Then, rising once more, he scooped up the kibble trailed through his apartment and collected it into a little bowl. He filled another bowl with tap water and brought them both to the wall, a step or two away from where the white cat sat. The stray cat stiffened as he approached, but Yuusaku kept his movements slow and backed away once the food and water had been set.

He wasn't feeding a stray. Not at all.

He'd get rid of the cat in the morning.


	2. Why You Don't Name Strays

When he first woke up, the cat was nowhere to be found. Yuusaku blinked his eyes and stumbled to his feet, gazing left and right. The sun was high in the sky and the clock read 13:26—while late, he truthfully hadn't gone to bed until 08:00 that morning. Dull traffic noises could be heard through the closed windows, but he didn't hear the cat anywhere. Didn't see the cat either. It appeared to have left its perch on the windowsill where it had been _all night._ He wanted to shrug it off and continue on with his morning, but he'd left the door and window closed else some other mangy stray crawled into his house.

The cat was still indoors.

Scratching at his bedhead, he began the tedious search round the apartment. As small as his space was, there were plenty of hiding spots in cupboards and under the sofa for a cat to wander. However, the white stray ended up being in his bedroom, crammed all the way to the back and pressed against the wall. The same wide, blue eyes stared back at him, just as afraid as before. Yuusaku glanced behind him and saw that the bowl of crunched-up crackers looked untouched.

He picked up a morsel and set it on the floor. "Hungry?"

The cat stared back at him.

Gently, he flicked the crumb under the bed. It landed not even a foot away from the stray, but still it didn't budge. Yuusaku held his breath and waited, and when it appeared the cat wouldn't be moving for the next century or two, he rose to his feet and left it under the bed. Even knowing it was still in the house and hadn't crawled into the toilet was a relief. Care was not something he exhibited to random creatures, but he also didn't want to deal with an injured or dead animal.

Still. The problem was that the damn cat was in the house and he couldn't get it out. Couldn't even get it out from under the bed much less out the front door.

He grumbled to himself as he prepared the water and instant coffee mix. Calling Kusanagi was still out of the question. There would be too many questions, for starters. Kusanagi would probably tell him to _keep_ the stray. Ultimately, he'd get roped into caring for an animal he had neither time nor energy for. Calling animal control also seemed unreasonable. They'd have to come into his house and remove the cat despite it just sitting under his bed. Somehow, it still seemed like too much effort.

He took a sip from his coffee and hummed to himself. But Takeru ... Takeru didn't know much about cats, owned lizards, and was an animal lover in his own right. Yet whereas Kusanagi would joke about the cat following him home, Takeru wouldn't know of this. He'd assume the cat got in by mistake—which it still had—and help him get it _out._ There'd be no guilt-tripping about keeping the stray, and thus no awkward conversations making him out to be some heartless scrooge who couldn't keep a poor animal off the streets. Plus, he hadn't talked to Takeru last night, too preoccupied with the stray. This would give them time to spend together.

He snatched his duel disk up from the table and texted Takeru.

> _Yuusaku:_ There's a stray cat in my house and it's under my bed.
> 
> _Takeru:_ omg, you got a kitty!
> 
> _Yuusaku:_ No.
> 
> _Takeru.:_ Oh.
> 
> _Takeru:_ yeah, one sec. omw.

He flicked his duel disk closed and tossed it back onto the bed. A part of him wanted to go back into the bedroom and see if the cat had moved at all, but he knew better. That stray was scared of him. It would only hide for longer if he kept on pestering it. So he fiddled around on the computer, scrolling through many web pages worth of content on stray cats, diseases they carried, mannerisms. Sometime early in the morning he'd found guides for domestic cats and the ever-demanding debate of whether cats should be on wet food or dry food, which he'd only read out of sheer boredom.

Not even a peep came from the bedroom until he heard a single, loud knock on the door. He jumped at the noise too, forgetting that he had asked Takeru to come over. When he opened the door, Takeru was blushing pink and staring down at his converse. His cheeks were almost the same colour as the highlights in his hair, and he had one hand raised in a half-fist.

"Probably shouldn't have knocked, huh?"

Yuusaku waved him inside. Takeru had been in his apartment many times before, but ever polite, he still had to say, "Excuse me," when he entered and lie his shoes at the side of the genkan; Yuusaku's own shoes were tipped upside down from when he'd kicked them off last night.

"So where's your kitty friend?" Takeru asked, rubbing his hands together.

He nearly muttered, _You're just like Kusanagi,_ before he held his tongue. Takeru didn't need to know about the strays all round Cafe Nagi and how one of them may have followed him home and snuck into the house. No, a much better story would be ...

"Got into the house when I was taking out the trash."

Takeru raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, but where is he? She? They?"

Yuusaku shrugged. Paused. "It's in the bedroom." He led Takeru into the back room; you could hardly call it a bedroom when there weren't even sheets on the mattress or a bedside time nearby, and the light was never on. Since he didn't sleep in it, he'd left the room to be more of a storage space ... yet the only belonging he had to store was his bed frame, and it made the room desolate and gloomy.

He crouched down on the floor and waited for Takeru to copy him. Then he peered under the bed, right to the back. The little while stray hadn't moved. The crumb still lie in front of it too.

"Aw!" Takeru cupped his cheek and cooed, using the same, ear-splitting baby-voice Kusanagi had used too. "I'm not a cat person, but this one's a real cutie!"

"It's a stray."

Takeru twisted his head from side to side. "Did it have a collar?"

"No. And there's no one out looking for a white cat, so it's likely feral."

"Hm ..." Takeru scratched at his chin, then sat up and against the wall. While Yuusaku was, at twenty years old, still in that awkward, not-quite-an-adult stage, Takeru had magically grown into an adult at the ripe age of eighteen. Gone was the baby fat from his cheeks and the green-rimmed glasses on his nose. He still kept his bangs long and in front of his eyes, but they didn't quite give him the mousy appearance they had back in high school.

"Have you considered calling an animal service?" Takeru asked.

Yuusaku stared down at his hands.

"Ah. I see. Hm." Back to humming and hawing, Takeru cupped his face in his hands. "You sure you don't want a cat?"

"Certain."

"Because this one really seems to like you."

Yuusaku rolled his eyes. "No, it doesn't. It's just scared."

A look of genuine surprise crossed Takeru's features. "You can tell?"

Yuusaku wanted to bang his head on the wall. For all his charm and positivity, Takeru was a simple-minded boy. Kind, but simple-minded. "Yes," Yuusaku ground out between his teeth. "The ears are flattened and its curled up in a ball. Hasn't left the bed since sometime this morning, and hasn't gone near me or anyone else. It's scared and stuck under there."

Rather than look affronted at the retort, Takeru only looked impressed. "Looks like you've done your research on cats then. But." He rose to his feet and brushed off his thighs; it had been a long time since he vacuumed in here, Yuusaku realised. Most likely it was dustier underneath the bed than an abandoned shack. He worried for the little white cat, no doubt turning grey as dust motes collected along its sleek pelt. Breathing down there would be even worse.

"But." Takeru clapped him on the arm, just once to rouse his attention. "I think I know what might lure it out."

"Hm?"

"Kitty treats."

Yuusaku blinked. "I don't have any of those."

"But the pet store does," Takeru said, already heading back towards the door to put on his shoes and jacket. Yuusaku hurried after him, stopping with his toes curled over the genkan.

"Won't that just make it stay?"

Takeru shrugged. "You're the cat expert."

"I read _one_ article." Technically ten, but he kept that thought to himself. He'd closed all the tabs on his computer too, so Takeru wouldn't see the evidence of his nightly research either.

"And I read one on the walk over, so we're even." Shoes on, Takeru stood at the doorway. Yuusaku let out a tired breath through his nose and pulled on his own shoes and sweater. Once Takeru got an idea in his mind, it was impossible to deter him. Furthermore, the more he thought about the stray cat under the bed, the more he was desperate for some magic fix and teleport it back outside—and one that didn't require calling either pet control or Kusanagi. This option seemed like the strongest contender.

Outside, the air was crisp and chilly. He could see why the stray slipped into his house at such a late hour, and why it hadn't moved from its hiding spot besides to find a better, warmer one. Yuusaku tucked his hands into his sleeves and buried deeper into his sweater. Even Takeru who would wear shorts in winter had bundled up in proper jeans and a jacket, and his trademark red scarf rustled in the icy breeze.

"So how'd a cat get into your house?" Takeru asked.

"Through the front door ..." he muttered.

"And you saw it?"

"When it was sitting on the windowsill staring back at me. Then it ran under the bed sometime this morning."

Takeru shoved his hands into his pockets. "I've never had a stray cat come into my house before, just birds and that one time with the bat."

Normally, the bat story made him laugh and recall the panicked call from Takeru at two in the morning when said black bat flew into the living room. Takeru had had to shoo it out the front door with a kitchen towel, all the while panicking if he hurt it or let it bite him, despite knowing next to nothing about what bats could actually do. But this time, Yuusaku only sighed once more and followed Takeru down the side streets into one of Den City's smaller communities. He'd seen the local pet store when he'd walked to school, back when he _did_ go to high school. The building still looked the same: cosy and quaint with a glass window out front displaying cat towers and pet carriers, and a creaky wooden door that led into a rather cramped store. There were three rows of shelves labelled "cat," "dog," and "small animals," and each shelf was stacked with whatever said animals would require. Even without owning a pet, Yuusaku knew every animal needed a food and water dish—but as he wandered down the shelf, he caught sight of all manner of strange equipment. Leashes for cats? Grooming tools? Didn't cats clean themselves?

Takeru pulled on his sleeve and led him to a small display with various coloured bags. They were all treats; of that much he was certain. But there were dozens of varieties and flavours, all claiming to have more benefits than the next brand.

Yuusaku gnawed on his bottom lip. If Kusanagi fed the strays hot dogs and canned tuna, how much did it matter what treats the cat ate? But within his hours of research he remembered reading notes about cats and their diets, and particularly that they needed meat.

One bag had chickens on it. He pulled it from the shelf.

"That one?" Takeru said, leaning close to see.

"I ... guess."

Takeru's mouth hung open. "You're guessing?"

"No. I know. I think." He pressed a hand to his temple and sighed once more. He doubted Kusanagi had had the same anxieties as him considering what he fed the strays, and a part of Yuusaku's mind wondered if he should have gone to the local grocer and picked up a can of tuna to tempt the white stray. But they were already at the pet store, bag in hand. It would do.

"Do you think it will eat food from a stranger?" Takeru asked.

Yuusaku shrugged. "It followed me home, so ..." He froze as the words echoed in his mind. "Well, what I mean—"

"It followed you home?" Takeru's last words squeaked, and no sooner had he spoken did he lean closer, eyes sparkling like firecrackers. "Oh that's adorable! Why wouldn't it take food from you then?"

Before Takeru pushed them book into the shelves, Yuusaku stepped away. "I don't know, it didn't want to get out from under the bed earlier."

"But maybe it's getting to know you!"

A ridiculous assumption. Takeru's advice was beginning to resemble Kusanagi's, and Yuusaku wanted out of that situation at once. He brushed aside and headed to the counter to purchase the treats. The cashier at the till scanned the item for him, but before he could tap his duel disk on the card reader and pay, she spoke up. "Would you like to make a donation to the local animal shelter today, sir?"

At his side, Takeru bounced up and down like an energetic puppy. "Oh, do it, Yuusaku! Or I'll do it. Once that cat leaves, maybe the shelter will feed it."

Yuusaku rolled his eyes; this stray would most likely die before it was found by anyone. Still, he turned to the cashier and said, "Five hundred yen then." The cashier smiled brightly and finished the transaction. As they headed out the door, he could still hear Takeru chirping away about the local shelter and all the good it did for Den City. How Takeru knew much about the animal shelter when he raised lizards remained unknown, and so Yuusaku focused on watching the streets and swinging the treat bag round his pointer finger.

"So how did it follow you home?" Takeru asked.

"From Kusanagi's. He's feeding strays."

Takeru's eyes glowed once more. "Do you think he'd let me feed them?"

"If you came over."

"But this one—it followed you home! Did you feed it?"

"Course not," Yuusaku said, trying to keep the growl from his words. "I never wanted a pet in the first place, and now it's a mess trying to get this stray out of my bedroom."

Takeru merely rubbed at his chin. "But you didn't call Kusanagi for help ..."

"I thought you might be more help than him."

On Takeru, any blush had a brighter wattage, as if he were filled with an ever-burning flame. "How sweet of you. Well, hopefully these treats will help you out in rescuing ... wait, what's the kitty's name?"

"It's a stray, it doesn't have a name."

"But it _needs_ a name." Then, as if this would prove his point further, Takeru added, "I'm sure Kusanagi named his stray cats too."

"That's because he sees the strays as his pets." Yuusaku rounded the corner to his apartment block, heading up the stairs one sturdy step at a time. "The one in my house is a _stray._ Not mine. I'm not going to chase it out, but it's not staying."

Something in his words must have warned Takeru, for he backed off at once with a slight bow to his head. "Sorry, that was a bit much."

"My bad, I'm just ..." Tired. Stressed. A bit fed up with the whole situation. Not a single word sounded right on his tongue, but Takeru seemed to understand all the same as he gave him a warm thumbs up.

“Thank you. For—-for coming out here.”

Takeru smiled brightly at him. “Any time. Honestly. And tell me how it goes—it’ll all work out!!”

As he watched his friend head off, Yuusaku hoped so, for both his and the cat's sake. He was running out of feasible, stress-free options, and he couldn't just have a cat living under his old bed for the rest of his life, even if he never entered that room.

Back inside the house, Yuusaku slowly opened the door. If the cat had moved, he didn't want to startle it and shoo it back under the bed for the next day or two. He couldn't hear any rustling. Or mewling. As if it were a perfectly normal day, his apartment was untouched. In his and Takeru's hurry out the door, they'd left the living room lights on. And on his computer tower, fast asleep, was the little, white cat. It slept soundly with its little head curled to the side and tail wrapped round its body and laid light atop its pink nose. From the infographic he'd discovered online, the stray was content. Safe.

The door creaked open with a noise akin to a door opening in a horror film. Just like in a horror film, the cat sprung to its feet and shot like a solar bullet across the room and into the bedroom. He didn't have to search far to find it pressed against the wall, once more assuming its tense, loafed position. The ears were flattened back too, and it didn't blink once.

Yuusaku lowered his gaze as he settled down on the floor.

Great.

Wonderful.

The treats in his pocket crunched as he rolled onto his side, and he fished them out to see. They were small and square-shaped, and smelt vaugely of chicken when he brought one to his nose. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched for the stray's eyes or ears to prick as the smell of cat treats, but it remained as still as an old, stone statue. Nevertheless, these treats were his best option. He flicked one under the bed for the cat, and another one closer to the bedposts themselves. He pushed himself back against the wall so there was a clear five feet or so between him and the stray,  and settled down with the remaining treats in hand.

And then he waited.

Even in the deadly silence of his house, he didn't hear the cat move. At times, he _thought_ he heard the cat move, but when he checked, it was in the same spot and both treats were lying on the carpet. If anything, periodically checking would only make the stray more tense and agitated. Luring it out with treats sounded like a terrible solution. Wherever he'd read that in an article was false information.

Grumbling, Yuusaku made a longer trail out to the living room and set up shop in front of his laptop. If he was going to wait for the cat to come out, he might as well be productive about it instead of sit around and wait for it to move. Thus, Yuusaku began his day-off routine of scrolling through forums and server chats, browsing the web for anything new about Link Vrains or any of the other mobile games he played, and watching dumb DuelTube videos to pass the time in between. His duel disk glowed with several messages of Takeru, one of which was asking for a photo.

> _Yuusaku:_ It hasn't come out yet.
> 
> _Takeru:_ awwwww
> 
> _Takeru:_ and you need to give the cat a name! you can't just call it "it" for the rest of its life.
> 
> _Yuusaku:_ I'm not going to see it for the rest of its life. It's leaving today.
> 
> _Takeru:_ what about Haru? Whitey? Cloud? Mr. Chubby Cheeks?
> 
> _Yuusaku:_ None of those fit.
> 
> _Takeru:_ ... do you have something else in mind then? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> _Yuusaku:_ No.

But he knew that none of the names Takeru had suggested were good either. They were for friendly, gentle cats that would rub at your leg and purr like well-oiled engines. This cat was scared and defensive. Though he hadn't tried it, he was certain if he stuck his arm under the bed the damn stray would claw it off. This looked like a cat that would fight tooth and nail for its survival, and it was only a matter of time before it ran out from under the bed and bit him. It needed a strong name. A name for a warrior cat that would defend its land and protect its honour.

Revolver.

No, that was just as stupid as the names Takeru had suggested.

As carefully as an observer scanning the lands, he peered over the back of the couch and searched for any sign the cat had been there. All the treats were still lined out the door, untouched. His lungs filled with another sigh, but he stopped as he heard the soft, hopeful sound of crunching. Then a pause. Then another crunch.

His heart nearly leapt into his throat. The cat had emerged. Before it headed out the bedroom door, Yuusaku turned to the side and stared at the wall. One of the articles had explicitly stated that cats were frightened by staring, so he decided to look at the wall and peer out of the corner of his eye. He slowed his breaths to gentle pants, anticipating the moment the small, wide head poked around the corner. Sure enough, the stray cat emerged. It crawled low to the ground, legs braced. As soon as it stepped through the doorway, it froze as it caught sight of him. He kept his gaze forward, but the strength of the blue stare could be felt like a stormy wind.

He didn't dare move.

The white cat dipped its head and resumed eating. As it wandered down the cat-crumb-trail, Yuusaku realised that he hadn't led the trail towards the door. Or the window. Or any place the cat from which the cat could get out of his apartment. Instead, the trail dropped off at the side of the coffee table; there wasn't even a plentiful pile of treats like a gold pot at the end of a rainbow. Still, the cat crawled all the way to the end before freezing. The little blue streak atop its head glowed in the afternoon light. It pressed its nose to the ground as if searching for more food.

Froze as it realised it was being watched.

Yuusaku opened the bag and flicked another treat down to the floor. The cat crouched lower, ears flattening, and did not approach. Then it darted to the side and back into the bedroom.

Yuusaku groaned into his hands. By all means, it was a success, but a small one equivalent to setting one stone in place for a sky-high wall. He went to the kitchen and filled a bowl with water, and another one with several treats, and placed them both just outside the bedroom door. If the stray was brave enough to come out for food, it would do it again. He'd lure it out again and ... set it back outside? What if this cat was in danger? The shelter he'd donated to might take a stray cat. Might even help him get the cat out of the house.

He snatched up his phone and messaged Takeru again. Instead, he got a phone call a second later.

"Did you get the cat out?|

"Yeah."

"And?" He could feel the anticipation in Takeru's tone.

"It's back under the bed."

Rather than comfort his bad luck, Takeru only sounded more impressed. "Aw, so you are going to keep—"

"No, I'm going to give it to the shelter."

Takeru still chuckled into the microphone, and Yuusaku could imagine the merry twinkle in his eyes. "Have you thought of a name yet?"

"I'm giving it away—"

"But you're obviously going to have it for another night, right? It's too late to take it to the shelter."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Waking up in the afternoon had its downfalls, one of which was that nothing was _open_ when he happened to be awake. He would spend another night with the stray cat in the house and take it to the shelter before his shift with Kusanagi began.

"So, what's the cat's name? Anything, any name at all."

He couldn't say "Revolver."

"Give me an idea then, an idea for a name."

"Ryouken."

"No, an _idea_ for a _name,_ not the word 'idea.'"

"Ryouken. I'll call the damn stray Ryouken."

Takeru's groan turned into a laugh, and he admitted, "I fell for that one, I'll admit. Fine. Ryouken." He paused, sounding the word out on his tongue. "Yuusaku, that's a name for a dog. No, a _term_ for a dog. A _hunting dog.”_

"And I'm keeping Ryouken for one more day. It'll do."

Takeru was still laughing into the receiver as Yuusaku carried the duel disk to the kitchen and began reheating another packet of rice. In all the morning's chaos he'd forgotten to eat breakfast, or lunch, and by this point it was dinnertime and he'd only just realised how hungry he was. He waited to see if Ryouken came out of the bedroom at the sound of a rice packet being opened and reheated, but the bowls remained untouched.

"If Ryouken comes out again, can you ... take a picture for me? Please?"

Wryly, Yuusaku smiled down at the duel disk, thankful Takeru couldn't see him.

"Fine."

"And maybe a video too?"

"Sure." By this point, he'd end up telling Kusanagi about the cat too, and he'd had photographic proof that one of Kusanagi's strays made it into his house and expected the same princely treatment as all the others. It wouldn't get Kusanagi to stop feeding them, and Yuusaku didn't care, but the picture would be worth the story and rant.

And tomorrow, he would take Ryouken to the shelter.


	3. Why You Don't Keep Strays

A positive thought was that Ryouken wasn't constantly cowering under the bed. Another positive thought was that he was eating and drinking too, and didn't seem to be starving himself. By his relaxed posture both under the bed and around his food and water dish, he was becoming more comfortable with his surroundings. Not Yuusaku though—he crouched low to the floor whenever Yuusaku so much as shifted or coughed, and so he had no choice but to freeze whenever Ryouken emerged from the bedroom to settle in for a bite to eat. He must have looked even sillier when he had to freeze with one shoe on and the other off.

But Ryouken was coming out of his shell.

Yuusaku rubbed tiredly at his eyes and face. He'd slept no more than a couple hours, as he started work again and Kusanagi would need him for the lunchtime and after-school rushes. He'd also woken up earlier to try and get Ryouken out from under the bed and to the local animal shelter, but upon waking, he'd come to a standstill. He didn't have a carrier for Ryouken. Or anything that would function as one either, unless he dared stuffing the cat in a backpack. And that wasn't even covering the fact that he couldn't  _ approach  _ Ryouken either.

_ Do not pick up stray cats,  _ the article had read. It had been clear on that. But just how was he meant to tempt a startled cat? It had taken over a day to get Ryouken out from under the  _ bed. _

Thus, until he found a solution to the terrible predicament, he was stuck on leaving Ryouken home while he went to work. It wouldn't be any different than passing out on the couch while the cat wandered from the bedroom to its bowls, but he still felt a pang of worry over leaving Ryouken for several hours. His house wasn't cat-proof. This wasn't even his cat. Somehow the thought of leaving Ryouken home alone seemed more frightening than putting him outside to fend for himself, but that option was strictly off the table as he couldn't even coax Ryouken to the door. Ryouken had made himself  _ quite  _ cosy at the Fujiki residence.

On cue, Ryouken appeared from the bedroom on four soft, white paws. He padded to his water dish, but before he could bend down to drink, he froze as he spotted Yuusaku. Yuusaku hadn't moved the entire time, breath held.

_ Want a treat?  _ Yuusaku wondered. He reached towards his pockets, but Ryouken stiffened, drawing back like an elastic. Any second he would snap and run back into the bedroom. Still, Yuusaku had to try. He extracted his fingers from his pocket, a single treat held between them. He tossed it onto the floor. Though it landed nowhere near Ryouken, the cat's ears pricked to the sound.

_ Go on, eat it. _

Ryouken inched forward on the floor and craned his head to neatly swipe the treat.

Silently, Yuusaku cheered. If he could get Ryouken used to him, he could buy a carrier for him after work and take him to the shelter the following morning. It would be a piece of cake.

In the meantime, he'd be frozen in his living room waiting for Ryouken to scurry back to the bedroom. However, Ryouken walked in the opposite direction, heading towards the computer. He leapt onto the couch and nestled down against the thin, cotton blanket tossed across the cushions. Living alone, Yuusaku never folded anything. He waited for Ryouken to bristle at the bunched fabrics, but instead he kneaded at the material for a moment and settled down in the same, defensive loaf position. At least he looked more settled among the blanket.

Yuusaku sucked in a breath as he shifted to the side once. Then again. Ryouken watched him the way a hawk would watch a mouse ... or a cat would watch a mouse, for that matter. Had Ryouken claimed that spot as his own? The stray would be staying for one night more and one night only. That was the final decision. But until then, he didn't dare disturb Ryouken. Thus, even though he had an hour until his shift and it took at most fifteen minutes to walk to Cafe Nagi, Yuusaku set off to work. The morning chill had been chased from the streets by the midday sun, but in the shade he shivered and tucked deeper into his jacket. Were he back home, he would have been cosy under his blanket and still in his pyjamas, a cup of coffee nursed in one hand.

He shook his head and turned the corner to the main plaza. At this hour, it was still quiet; the lunch rush had yet to begin, and all students and office workers were still at their respective buildings and hard at work. Without being filled with people and passerbys, the plaza looked much larger. He could even see the ocean stretching out ahead of him, blue and frothy from fierce winter waves.

Cafe Nagi's window was still boarded up, and Kusanagi hadn't even set up the little metal tables and chairs in front of the truck. He could hear him bustling inside though, and when Yuusaku opened the door, he saw Kusanagi hard at work in front of the kitchen, heating up great vats of chili and chopping peppers and onions into cube-sized pieces.

Kusanagi nearly leapt out of his skin when he saw him. "Is it noon already?"

Yuusaku shook his head and stepped into the van. "Not yet—"

"Then ... how ...?"

"How what?"

Kusanagi paused. Closed his mouth. Then his cheeks puffed out with a muffled laugh and turned back to the counter and continued chopping onions. "I see," was all he said as Yuusaku closed the truck door behind him. Normally, he'd drop his backpack onto the front seats, but in his hurry to leave before Ryouken dashed away, he hadn't grabbed anything, not even breakfast. Fortunately, he and Kusanagi were long past awkwardness. He grabbed a bun and munched away at it.

Kusanagi was still standing at the counter, hiding his chuckles with precise chops of his knife. Yuusaku could see he was hiding something though.

"What?" he muttered.

"You just seem a little out of it today—arrived early, no backpack, no apron—"

Yuusaku patted his chest. He'd dressed himself, a feat of strength in the madness of the morning, but his white Cafe Nagi apron was missing, and he knew exactly where it was.

"It's fine," Kusanagi told him, and tilted his head towards the back of the van. "I have spares in the cupboard."

"Thanks." He headed to the back of the van and returned dressed. Unlike his own, well-worn apron, this one was stiff and starchy without any beige stains or loose strings from fraying fabric. Even Kusanagi's own apron had wear and tear.

Yuusaku got to work at once, rolling up his sleeves and taking the wire grill brush in one hand. He and Kusanagi cleaned the grill each night too, but it had always been his job in the morning to give it one last clean and apply the non-stick solution.

Kusanagi set his knife down on the counter and turned round. "Your shift doesn't start for another half hour. Sit."

"I got here early—"

"And you're not on shift yet. Sit. You can tell me about that kitty of yours, if you'd like."

Dry air crackled in his lungs. Yuusaku spun around, but Kusanagi was only grinning ear to ear at him—the same grin he had worn two days ago as he showed him countless photos of stray cats.

Before Yuusaku could even ask, Kusanagi said, "Takeru told me. Told me he wanted to come over and see my kitty cats too, but he told me all about lil Ryouken."

Heat burned from his cheeks to his ears. Takeru had always had loose lips, but Yuusaku had hoped—prayed even—that this wouldn't be anything worth spoiling. It shouldn't have been. And yet his entire body felt like a volcano about to explode. Was he embarrassed? Maybe. Upset? In an odd, self-inflicting sort of way. Takeru spouting the truth wasn't the problem. No, Yuusaku felt awful in thinking that Kusanagi knew that Ryouken was still at his house.

"It's nothing," he said with a shrug, turning back to the grill. Scrubbing had become harder with his tense limbs, and while this repetitive motion often lulled him, he felt like he was rubbing velcro together.

Kusanagi hadn't continued chopping.

"This isn't some jab at your pride, Yuusaku. You took in a stray—"

"And I'm sending it off to the shelter tomorrow."

Kusanagi sighed gustily. "Takeru said you were taking it to the shelter today."

Through his teeth, he ground out, "I don't have a carrier."

"I think the volunteers will come and take strays away if you give them a call."

He knew that. He'd looked it up. But ... "I don't want anyone in my house."

"Hm," was all Kusanagi said, and like an angel descending from the sky, he returned to his work. The slow, methodical chop-chop punctuated the settling silence. Were it any other day, Yuusaku would have felt soothed by the familiar sounds. This was how he and Kusanagi started up the shop. This was how the day began. But the nagging conversation tickled the back of his mind, and he knew Kusanagi wasn't about to let it slide.

"Takeru came by yesterday wanting to feed the kitties." Kusanagi chuckled. "You told him?"

"Hm," Yuusaku said first. He swept the charcoaled bits to the side to sweep away later and began lathering the grill bars in non-stick solution. Then: "Well, he came to see me first."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, you know. Count it as a blessing a lovely little creature graced you with its presence."

It hardly counted as a blessing. More like a damn nuisance in his life. But Kusanagi wouldn't listen to his griping, so he bit his lip and answered much more primly, "I know. It's not a big deal."

"And you called him Ryouken. A charming name!"

"Takeru insisted."

"He insisted I do the same too." Laughing, Kusanagi scooped up his duel disk and flicked through the album of photos. There were even more pictures, many of them featuring Takeru  _ melting  _ on the back step of the truck, cheeks rosy-red and hands pressed to his face. Other photos had him crouched around the animals or reaching out with grabby fingers. No doubt he'd been cooing like a dove too. At some point, Takeru must have taken the duel disk out of Kusanagi's hands and started snapping pictures of him, for there were many images of Kusanagi cooing too. All the while the cats ate away at the plates of tuna and hot dogs.

"What kind of food are you feeding them?" Kusanagi asked.

He blinked in surprise.

"You are feeding Ryouken, aren't you?"

"O-of course," he said, wincing at the wobble in his words. "It's ... something with chicken. Protein. I don't know, it looked like it wouldn't kill him on the spot."

"I'm sure you're taking good care of him," Kusanagi said, a mischievous glint in his eye. Yuusaku opened his mouth to ask just  _ what  _ that look was for when the clock over their heads gave a bright, cheery ring. It was opening time. Yuusaku marched outside to get the tables set up and Kusanagi popped open the shop window. On a weekday, there was never anyone standing around for the truck to open, but in a half-hour the square would be buzzing with the entire city on their lunch break.

Once the shift began, all chatter of strays and cats and Ryouken fizzled away. They started heating hotdogs and buns in preparation for the rush and brewed the coffee and tea. If there was time for chatter, it was only about the new Link Vrains event they'd both been following through Twitter. Yuusaku had concerns about  _ any  _ event run through Link Vrains, and Kusanagi told him he had an inside source that they still hadn't finished preparing for the event.

Then came the rush like a great flood of tired youth and tireder office workers demanding hot food and hotter coffee. With the cold temperatures, chili dogs had become more popular. As Kusanagi took the orders and payment, Yuusaku served the food and stocked up on the ingredients. He lost track of time even though the clock was just a glance to the side, and by the time he  _ did  _ look at the clock, the sun had fallen beneath the horizon and his shift was nearly over.

Kusanagi gave him a push on the shoulders with one sweaty hand. "You were here early and I'm not keeping you longer. Home. Now."

"I can stay," he said with a huff.

"Ryouken misses you."

A snort. "He just sits and stares at me."

Kusanagi had the audacity to look affronted, eyebrows rising into his messy, purple bangs. "I know you read up on cats, so you must know they like to be in the same room as humans."

And if Kusanagi had read up on cats too, that meant he knew that his strays liked him because he fed them, not some social pack obligation. But Yuusaku willed himself not to speak out of turn and hold his voice steady.

"Or does the pet shop close soon?" Kusanagi asked.

"Not for another hour or two."

"Mm." Kusanagi still had that look about him—that knowing, teasing look that adults always got. He was an adult too, but around Kusanagi he felt like a child still learning to walk on his own two feet. For all his whims, Kusanagi was mature. A grown-up. And unlike Takeru who he could talk out of a situation with strong logic, Kusanagi matched him in intelligence.

"So you're taking Ryouken to the shelter tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Does it open tomorrow before your shift?"

"Yes." An hour before. It would be a sprint from the shelter to Cafe Nagi, and a much longer morning spent coaxing Ryouken into the carrier, but it was possible. It  _ had  _ to be possible.

"Even after you named the kitty?"

Yuusaku hunched his shoulders, feeling the words like a jab to his gut. "It was Takeru who named him."

"I thought you named him."

"Then it was Takeru's  _ idea  _ to name the stray."

Kusanagi shrugged. "Usually when people name animals, it's because they have a connection to them. You don't just name any old creature off the street. You name  _ pets." _

"And"—Yuusaku turned with a sharp twist, heels squeaking on the recently-mopped floors—"it was Takeru who told me to name the cat. I didn't want to."

"You're stubborn, Yuusaku."

"And this is turning into an argument," he said through his teeth. He could feel his blood boiling underneath his apron. His heart pounded like a great, rumbling drum. There wasn't time for this.  _ He  _ didn't have time for a petty argument. But his feet were grounded with weights and the only part of his body that  _ wanted  _ to move were his cracked lips. "I don't have time to care for a stray. I didn't want this. So I'm sending Ryouken off to a better home tomorrow—the  _ responsible, mature  _ thing to do."

"Then why didn't you do it yesterday?"

He froze.

"Why didn't you?" Kusanagi said again. "You're stubborn, Yuusaku, and I know you would have made that call if you wanted the stray out of your home. You're not like Takeru and that poor bat, both of them flailing around unsure how to solve the situation. You looked up what to do. You made a decision—"

"And that decision is happening tomorrow."

"Is it?" Kusanagi leaned back on the counters, but still the air between them felt tense and electric. "Even though you already have the food for a cat? The treats?"

"I'll give those to the shelter too."

"Even though you've taken care of this cat so far? Even though you did all that research, even though you spent all that time trying to take care of Ryouken?"

His chest hurt; it was the first feeling he could accurately name. Pins and needles scoured his throat, then sandpaper. "I can't ... I can't take care of a cat. I can't even ..."  _ Take care of myself. _

Kusanagi folded his hands in his lap. "But you have."

"I don't need empty praise, Kusanagi."

"And I'm not giving you any." A pause, long enough for Yuusaku to raise his head. Kusanagi wasn't smiling. Wasn't joking either. He wore the sort of expression a therapist might wear when speaking to their client. Yuusaku had seen  _ that  _ expression before. But never on Kusanagi, the man who would break into smile at the smallest of occcurences and sing in the truck. He was always smiling, but never this ... thoughtful? Sincere? He couldn't put into words just what Kusanagi looked like, but it caught his heart.

"You take care of a cat just how you learnt in your research: food, water, exercise, attention. You give catts space when they needs it and care when they demands it. You've done this before—Takeru told me about it. How is this any different?"

"Because I want him gone."

"You would have put Ryouken back outside then."

"I won't send him to the shelter then. I'll rehome him myself."

"After he's already settled with you?"

Yuusaku bowed his head. The heat built up inside him left in one wispy breath as he hung like a ragdoll. The counter behind him offered minute support, enough that he didn't headplant into the opposite countertop. At the minute, he couldn't trust his legs to even stay steady.

"This is going to be a mistake ..."  _ I'm going to regret it. _

"It's going to be an  _ experience." _

He had to laugh. Just once. A breath of air more than any proper sound. "That's one word for it," he said in a whisper of words.

"You can blame me if it goes sideways," Kusanagi said, tapping his shoes on the ground. "Or Takeru. Haven't we both roped you into this?"

"I think you roped Takeru into it ..."

"Then just blame me." The usual Kusanagi had returned in his cheesy glory. His eyes widened and his smile too, and suddenly he was moving through the truck and into the storage cupboard. "And on that note, you've reminded me of all the fickle felines who will be visiting me soon. Don't you have someone to attend to as well?"

Yuusaku ducked his head, feeling a blush spread across his cheeks. "Don't say it like that."

"Then off you go before the swarm comes. I'll see you tomorrow."

With one last goodbye, Yuusaku slipped out the door. Kusanagi was right about one fact: the felines  _ had  _ come in a swarm, all mewling and crying at the back of the van. In the dim streetlamp light, he could only see their shadows cutting through the glow, but there were many, all bouncing around like little black motes. Even louder were their cries until Kusanagi cut in with a cheery, "Who's ready for dinner? Oh you, and yes you too, and it seems like all of you are hungry today, aren't you just hungry babies?"

He chuckled as he headed back to the house. On the way he stopped at the petstore, still with its front sign dimly lit. The pet carrier was in the shop window, made of plastic and pointed edges. Next to it was a much softer, plush pet bed that could have been a caved-in pillow for all he knew. Between the two, Ryouken would have fancied the pet bed. And more chicken-flavoured kibble. And treats.

He returned home with the bed and food under his aching arms. He struggled to turn the key, and when he toed the door open, he expected a white bullet to shoot between his legs and down the stairs. However, with the light still on, he could see Ryouken fast asleep on the computer tower in a perfect halo. Ryouken must have known he was home, but he didn't raise his head or mewl, or dart away to the bedroom.

Gently, Yuusaku closed the door and left his belongings on the genkan. He peeled his shoes from his feet and set them to the side. Extracted the treat bag from the pile. Ryouken's head lifted at the sound of food, but he didn't move.

"Hey," Yuusaku said. "Hungry?"

Ryouken blinked back at him.

"I'll, uh, put some in your dish. OK?" He tiptoed across the living room and knelt by the bowl. Ryouken's neck stretched even further as he peered round the couch to try and see the treats. Yuusaku ignored him as he poured the treats out. When he was done, he rose. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched for Ryouken to make a move.

On soft paws, Ryouken leapt to the floor.

Yuusaku backed away. He couldn't startle the cat, not after the tentative bond they'd just formed. Kusanagi and Takeru had  _ pet  _ the strays that came to the back of the truck, but he felt of unsure of even being in the same  _ room  _ as Ryouken, much less stroking his fur. Thus, he settled on the couch, knees tucked to his chin. Ryouken sat in front of his bowl, munching away.

"You like it here, huh?" He sighed. "I guess."

If Ryouken could have responded, he would have said something snarky; he just seemed like that kind of cat. But when he lifted his head, he blinked at Yuusaku and curled his thin tail around his paws, and the blue dash around his brow looked like a starry halo.


	4. Why You Don't Tell Your Friends You Adopted a Stray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there! sorry for the delay with this chapter! i had a busy weekend. nonetheless, the next chapter is about 60% done, so by tomorrow it should be out, and likely there will be one chapter each day ^^ apologies for the change in schedule, but rest assured this fic will be completed!

At 22:00, Yuusaku felt like he understood this cat business. He'd read a plethora of web articles from reputable sources about caring for cats. Even in his sleep he could name off how a cat's diet should comprise of meat; how cats were intelligent creatures that need both physical and mental stimulation; and how cats could sleep between 12-18 hours each day. This information sat well in his mind, and by his observations of Ryouken, he believed them all to be true. Ryouken ate the food from his dish. While he slept more, from time to time Yuusaku heard him rolling around in the bedroom. At one point he leapt up onto the windowsill and batted at the curtain string with his round paws. Nothing he did surprised Yuusaku.

At 02:00, he'd read even more articles. There were now webpages critiquing the pet food he bought, saying it poisoned cats. There was another argument over whether cats should eat wet or dry food, and a whole another spew of comments regarding a raw food diet. The arguments continued to address everything from the toys cats play with to their habitat. Yuusaku pressed the heels of his hands into his eye socks and groaned. How had he not seen any of this before? Or even earlier on in the night? Ryouken had already eaten half of the food in his dish, and his new favourite toy was the bathroom sink. Was that good for him? Who knew?

At 05:30, he said fuck it all.

At 06:00, he realised he never bought Ryouken a litter box.

Yuusaku leapt from the sofa and hurried into the room. A strong, wretched smell filled the entire space, but when he gazed around with the weary yellow light flicked on, he didn't see anything. The only furniture in the room was the bed, stripped of its covers, so unless ...

Oh.

Groaning, he headed back into the kitchen, startling Ryouken from the sink. The little white cat dashed across the room and cowered behind the coffee table. Yuusaku didn't have time to panic now. He dragged the bed away from the wall and cleaned up the mess Ryouken had made in one of the corners. Since it was too early to head to the pet store—it wouldn't even be open at this hour, and he hadn't slept yet—he found a plastic tub. Stared at it.

He didn't even have cat litter.

Groaning, he hung his head. Work with Kusanagi started in ... six hours, and sometime before that he needed to nap. Kusanagi would only let him call out of work if he were truly sick, and he wouldn't miss a shift anyways, not over something so trivial.

_ Take a deep breath,  _ he told himself. Stop panicking. The logical solution was to head to the convenience store and pick up a bag of litter; the store was less than five minutes away, and it was hopefully all he would need to do to stop Ryouken from using the bedroom carpet as his litter box. Thus, Yuusaku marched to and from the store in record time with the cat litter. Ryouken watched him from the couch as he poured the litter into the tub and set it in the bedroom, far enough away from both his favourite sleeping spot and his food and water dishes.

By the time he was done, Yuusaku felt like he had been run over by a truck. He scratched at his face and hair, feeling gross and grimy but too tired to deal with it. The awful smell in the room had him retching too, and thankfully he was used to sleeping on the couch. Thus, he flopped down on the cushions and yanked the covers up to his chin. A couple hours wouldn't erase the permanent sleep deprivation, but it would get him through the shift and hopefully set him up for one good night's of sleep tomorrow.

_ Scritch. Scratch. _

He pushed his face further into the arm of the couch.

_ Meeeeow. _

Further.

_ Mrrrr— _

"Ryouken." His voice, though muffled by couch cushions and blankets, still came out loud and clear. "Enough."

Over his head, he heard some more scuffling, and this time, Yuusaku rose. Directly beneath him and crouched on the floor was Ryouken, paws deep into the side of the couch. By the wideness of his pupils, he'd been intently clawing away. Yuusaku's presence didn't frighten him enough to run, tail between his legs, back into the bedroom, but he froze, paws shivering. Two white ears sunk low to his skull.

Sighing, Yuusaku pressed his face back into the couch cushion. He'd forgotten to buy a scratching toy too. And good cat toys in general. And more treats. But even with the thoughts plaguing his mind, he was too tired to get up—and now, he was too stressed to sleep.

He grumbled and held his arm over his head. Even if he couldn't get any sleep, he was determined to at least rest his eyes. That would help him make it through the shift, dry-eyed and dizzy. He'd done it before. But just as his eyes began to slip closed once more, Ryouken began pulling at the back of the couch with his claws. The fabric snapped back with the force of the kneading. Deep within Ryouken's tiny lungs came a hearty purr, a growl had he not known that cats could make such pleasant sounds. At one point, Kusanagi had told him purring was the sound of angels. Yuusaku could only think of how he lucky he was he'd never see those golden gates; if heaven was that obnoxious, he would happily walk to hell.

By some miracle, Ryouken's purring got quieter. Or he got sleepier. He wasn't even sure if he'd fallen asleep, only that when he raised his head, Ryouken was long gone and asleep on the computer tower, not on his cosy bed. He pricked his ears and a large yawn split his face. Yuusaku yawned with him, tilting his head towards his shoulder. It had been a few years since he’d awoken with persistent nocturnal terrors, but he still suffered from them from time to time, and as he came to, he dazedly realised that he has slept well. The two hours of sleep had done more for him than a full night's rest had.

Ryouken reached forward and stretched his hind high in the air, tail pricked like a surrender flag. Once his eyes opened though, he was on the defensive. He kept his limbs tucked in close and his tail wrapped over his toes, but every muscle in his body was tense.

And then he sneezed, tipping forward. He saved himself a fall off the cat tower by digging his claws into the plastic ridges and holding steady.

Yuusaku coughed out a laugh, smothering it behind his hand. No matter how murderously Ryouken glared at him, the comedic moment had still happened, and dare he sat the poor cat looked embarrassed. His back fur bristled like pines on a cactus.

"Sorry," Yuusaku said, pushing himself off the couch. Ryouken reeled back at the sudden movement, but Yuusaku made sure to give him a wide berth. He headed into the bathroom to scrub his face clean and brush his teeth before he forgot, and then back to the kitchen where he'd left his Cafe Nagi apron in a pile. Bits of white fluff clung to it; Ryouken must have found a new sleeping bed, as if he didn't have a functional, soft cat bed. The damn thing was ergonomic for all he knew, and yet whenever he found Ryouken snoozing, it was on the cat tower, the windowsill, or the arm of the couch—and none of those places should have been comfortable.

As he wandered around the house collecting his belongings for work, he felt a particular icy stare following him. If he dared so much as  _ breathe  _ near Ryouken he'd scare the cat, but Ryouken had a habit of watching him. The articles had said cats were inquisitive creatures. That much was true. Yet he hadn't expected to be monitored.

Once he was ready, he turned back to Ryouken and crossed his arms. He hadn't moved an inch, settled on the cat tower with his bristly fur. In the midday sun, it looked greyer. Dirtier.

A curious thought crossed his mind:  _ Do you bathe cats? _

As if he could read his mind, Ryouken curled up into a tighter ball, eyes narrowed.

"I'll be back," Yuusaku said, raising an awkward hand. He cursed himself once the words were out—Takeru and Kusanagi's kitty-talk was rubbing off on him. Soon he'd be cooing and baby-talking to Ryouken.

Without another embarrassing word, he marched out of the apartment and closed the door behind him. Just as the door clicked shut, he swore he heard a sad mewl. A cry. But if he opened the door again and it was Ryouken, he doubted he could close it in his face. Thus he swung away from the door and marched down the stairs, out into the chilly autumn air. Each day the temperature dropped another degrees or two, and this particular winter felt colder than all the others. By the time he made it to Kusanagi's hot dog truck, at a reasonable time too, his nose and cheeks were burning with frostbite and his fingers wouldn't pinch together.

Kusanagi opened the door with a soft tsking sound. "You need to invest in a pair of gloves. I'll send you home with some tonight."

"'m fine," he answered, climbing into the truck. The change in temperature was immediate: it was a sauna here, warm from the preheated grills and bubbling pots of chilli. Once the side window opened up there would be a chill here, yet Kusanagi was content in a t-shirt, apron, and jeans. There was even a rosy dust to his face.

"You wouldn't want to pet a kitty with cold hands."

"That's not why I need them."

Kusanagi only sighed. "And how is dear Ryouken? Ryou-chan?"

"Ryou _ ken,"  _ he answered, defensive at first, and then he shrugged, remembering Ryouken's lulling purrs early this morning. "He's fine."

"You've marketed these strays well, you know," Kusanagi said.

Yuusaku raised an eye. "What?"

"Takeru wants one too, and Naoki's considering it, just needs to check with his landlord first."

Takeru getting a cat would mean fewer messages of Takeru demanding to see pictures of Ryouken, and he cared far less about Naoki's personal life, but the point still stood. "What does this have to do with me?"

"You've inspired them," Kusanagi said, the way an adult might matter-of-factly say 'and that's that.' Only there was no possible way he could have inspired  _ anyone,  _ much less Naoki who he hadn't seen outside of the odd pass-by on the street or when he came to get a hotdog at Cafe Nagi. Takeru, he could understand, but Naoki? Impossible.

But Kusanagi kept on smiling, even bouncing on his heels like he had a fun secret to share. He felt like he was back at Den City High in the Duel Club as all the mediocre duelists shared their own 'fun secrets' that were never 'fun' or even 'secrets,' often just well-known clues and hacks for Link Vrains to modify your D-Board or allow your character to say certain expletives on the general chat. But unlike those duelists, what Kusanagi often learnt was classified information—and Yuusaku hated to admit it, but he was curious.

"How?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Well, Takeru saw Ryouken. Then he came over here practically cooing in front of the kitties. He gave half of them names for me, and then just this morning, maybe an hour at most, he sent me this message." Kusanagi handed him his duel disk, already turned on with the screen open to a bright message from Takeru.

_ Takeru: saaaaaaaay if any of those cats were the homey type would they ever want to live with someone who would take only the best care of them and spoil them rotten? _

"He's lovestruck," Kusanagi said, a twinkle in his eyes.

Yuusaku sighed through his nose. Even if Takeru was impulsive, he wasn't stupid—he would have looked up how cats and lizards can co-exist. Yuusaku didn't need to be the mature friend to knock the reality into him. But he wasn't sure  _ how  _ to feel about Takeru and Naoki getting pets because of him. He hadn't wanted a cat. Hadn't sought out Ryouken. The situation had happened only by various co-existing circumstances.

"Soon the entire stray population will be adopted all because one kind man took in a stray off the street."

"Now you're just being ridiculous," he muttered.

Kusanagi laughed heartily and dusted off his hands. "All right, got me, I am. Now come on, let's cook."

For the rest of the shift, they didn't speak of cats once. The rush of students and salary workers kept them on their toes all through the afternoon. He was thankful for both the hot grill and pots, and the bustle of orders, to stave off the chill settling over the city. These days, the sun fell under the horizon before the crowds dispersed, and thus it was impossible to see when the plaza's traffic disappeared to their houses. He could only tell by the lull that washed over the concrete like a thick wave, up and over the boardwalk and toppling the city in one fell swoop.

When the lull appeared, they closed shop. Yuusaku yawned as he brought dirty pots and spoons over to the sink in the back for Kusanagi to wash. The tables had to be brought in too, and so he zipped his jacket up and braced himself for the chill that would sweep through the door.

He nearly beamed Takeru with the door too.

"Takeru—"

"Hey, sorry!" Takeru jumped back so he could open the door fully, and rubbed at his arm. Yuusaku winced.

"I didn't know you were out here ..."

"Just came over," Takeru said, waving his off and giving his arm a little shake. He bounced back and forth on his heels with the energy of a teen ready to hit the streets on a Friday night. Last time Yuusaku checked the date, it was Tuesday.

With a hum, Yuusaku slipped past him and began folding up the chairs and tables and placing them at the back of the truck to be put away for the night. He saw Takeru move to help him, but he shook his head.

"I've got it—"

"Let me help." Takeru's words were insistent as he carried the table to pile with the others. "I owe Kusanagi."

"For last night?"

"For the kitties—and I owe you too."

Hardly something worth owing anyone for.

"And ..." Takeru smiled down at his feet. "Maybe I can come see Ryouken again? And you too, yes, you too, but also—"

Yuusaku laughed. The noise sounded foreign in his ears, and for a second he thought it was Kusanagi cackling away in the truck. But the laugh came from him, and he slapped a hand over his mouth before another one followed. Clearing his throat, he answered, "If you want. After work I need to pick up a few things."

"I'll come along," Takeru said.

Once the tables were put away, they bade farewell to Kusanagi and headed down the road to the pet store. The owner would know him by face and name soon, no doubt, but at night, the shop was silent and run by one kind man. Yuusaku bought as much as he could think he needed for Ryouken: a proper litter box, more cat litter, treats, food, toys. With Takeru's help they carried it back to the house, arms sagging under the weight. A nag at the back of his mind felt guilty for dragging Takeru along for the shopping trip, yet Takeru only seemed thrilled to be around pet products.

Takeru tossed the new bag of treats from hand to hand as they climbed the stairs to Yuusaku's apartment.

"Did Kusanagi tell you ..." Takeru asked.

"About a cat? Hm. Yes."

"And?"

Yuusaku shrugged. "I'm sure you did the same research as me."

"But you know first-hand," Takeru said, a hint of a plea in his words. "You know what it's like to take in a stray."

He scoffed. He had an  _ example,  _ not experience. "You'd find better information from a cat blogger," he said with a shrug as he turned the door key.

Takeru coughed softly. "Do you ... like it? Like having a cat?"

He forgot to answer as he swung open the door. The house was dark save for the kitchen light he'd left on, yet even in the dim glow he could see Ryouken curled atop his computer tower. The little, white cat yawned and blinked at him, blue eyes still half-lidded. It froze when Takeru stepped into the house too, but did not run.

"Aw, looks like he's settled in!"

Ryouken shot off the tower, across the room, and likely under the bed, all in a single blink of an eye.

"Aw."

"Don't worry," Yuusaku found himself saying. "He's shy."

"But he looks like he's settled in."

By the white hairs across the floor, on the counter, and over every speck of the couch, it appeared Ryouken had settled down  _ everywhere.  _ There wasn't an untouched surface to be seen. Just how had Ryouken managed to sit on everything when he slept most of the day away, and spent the other half sitting in one spot and judging the world? Yuusaku rubbed at his face, felt the sweat on his skin, and remembered something.

"Did you ever read anything on bathing cats?"

Takeru, who had been taking off his shoes, paused. Frowned. "Don't they clean themselves?"

"But if they're strays ... He'll need to go to the vet then?" Could Ryouken have been carrying diseases? As soon as the thought crossed his mind, his skin prickled with a thousand minute sensations. Millipedes  _ were not  _ crawling along his arms and legs but it felt like it, and he gave a strong shiver.

"Do you  _ want  _ to bathe him?" Takeru asked.

On cue, Ryouken reappeared. His fur looked greasier and more matted than before, and the blue-ish curl along his head had begun to blend in with his neck and back fur too.

Yuusaku clicked his tongue together, imagining the poor cat in his kitchen sink, soaked to the bone and squirming. He hadn't even  _ touched  _ Ryouken yet—just how was he supposed to bathe him?

As if he were answering the question, Ryouken leaned his face into the corner of the wall and rubbed his cheek across it, letting out a soft, contented purr.

Carefully, Yuusaku rose and grabbed an old kitchen cloth from under the sink. He wet it and wrung it until it was damp, and then brought it back to the living room. Neither Takeru nor Ryouken had moved, both watching him for his next movements. However, Yuusaku only sat down in the middle of the floor between them, blocking off Ryouken's view of the stranger. He held the cloth out for Ryouken to see—and waited.

Ryouken settled down into a loaf, paws tucked under him, as still as a  _ fucking statue. _

Takeru didn't laugh, but his words had their own, merry, albeit teasing, ring to them. "I'll leave you to that. May I ..." He tilted his head towards the bathroom.

"Sure," Yuusaku said. He dropped his hand to the ground, letting the damp cloth make a small puddle on the tile floor. Ryouken watched Takeru walk away, then turned back to him, still with the same, dull expression. His little sides rose and fell with even breaths, but he didn't budge. Didn't blink.

And then, one paw at a time, he wandered over. Yuusaku froze, hand stilled. There was but two feet between him and Ryouken, enough that he could see the thin layer of dust and dirt that could have come from outside  _ or  _ under his bed. Still Ryouken was glowing white and approaching fast, and Yuusaku didn't have time to do anything before Ryouken pressed his nose into the cloth. He pulled his face back, nose scrunched and whiskers twitching; behind him, his fluffy, white tail flicked back and forth.  Then he curled his head to the side, past the cloth, and rubbed his cheek to Yuusaku's arm. Once. Twice. His tail remained still and thin.

_ You like that?  _ Yuusaku wanted to say. Wanted to believe too. For a second, he even thought he heard Ryouken purr.

Then the bathroom door opened and Ryouken bolted back to the bedroom. Takeru smiled apologetically.

"Did you get to clean him at least?"

Yuusaku sighed and returned the towel to the sink. "I'll do it another time. He'll have to get used to you first."

"Does he like treats?"

There was a little bag of square-shaped treats still on the counter. Yuusaku poured some into Takeru's cupped hands and led him to the bedroom. Takeru had been in his house plenty of times, so there was no need for awkwardness about the state of the room. Under the bed though, that was another matter. Takeru sneezed as he lied down on the carpet.

"Maybe he's dirty from sleeping under here?"

The question wasn't insensitive, and instead a likely assumption, but Yuusaku's ears burned all the same. "I'll get to it tomorrow." He rubbed his fingers together to gather Ryouken's attention, and Takeru shook the treats. Ryouken's blue eyes widened but he remained still.

"You'll have to leave them for him," Yuusaku explained. "But he should eat."

They left the pile just out from under the bed, enough that when Ryouken did emerge, they would be able to see him from their crouched positions in the hallway. Yuusaku and Takeru waited with bated breath, focused on the little pile. A minute later, Ryouken made his appearance, crawling forward and settling by the treats. He ate them one by one with delicate bites, never lifting his head to see where they were crouched.

"He's gotten so used to you," Takeru said.

Yuusaku held off from pointing out that this cat had  _ followed him home.  _ If anything, Ryouken had become less used to him, hiding under the bed and running at the sight of him. Just how  _ had  _ the cat been brave enough to follow him home?

"He likes you too." Takeru was offering up compliments now, the sort of thing he did to fill the silence.

Yuusaku rested back against the wall, knees pulled up to his chest. Once Ryouken finished the treats, he snuck back under the bed.

"You like him too."

Yuusaku blinked in surprise.

"You do like that cat," Takeru said with an emphatic nod. "And he looks really happy here."

Takeru's praises often stopped  _ before  _ they got overly sentimental and heartfelt. Yuusaku wasn't sure how to answer a comment like this. Couldn't even fathom the words being spoken aloud in his presence. He swallowed to wet his dry throat and stood up to head to the kitchen—anything to distract him. In the fridge he found two cans of cola, and he brought one back for Takeru.

"Want to duel?"

Takeru must have known how badly he wanted to change the conversation. Yuusaku could  _ hear  _ the plea in his words.

"Sure, I've got my duel disk with me." Takeru paused, as if a thought had popped into his mind. "Will he ..."

"For an hour or two? Yeah, he'll be fine." He clicked on his duel disk, feeling the smooth metal slide like a shirt sleeve across his arm. The change in weight never registered in his mind despite owning a bulky, outdated model. The duel disk still functioned as a duel disk and that was what mattered. Before he logged in, he cast one more glance under the bed to make sure Ryouken had settled down and wouldn't be panicking over a stranger staying in the house any longer.

Ryouken slept like a log under the bed, unfazed. By the curl of his lips and the half-moon shape of his closed eyes, he even looked like he was smiling about a good dream.


	5. Why You Don't Put Your Stray in a Box

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **note: there are mentions of needles in this chapter, as Ryouken is going to the vet. It's not descriptive, but in case you are squeamish about the presence of needles even in fiction, tread carefully.**
> 
> also apologies this is a bit late, but i wanted to get it all edited up when i wasn't sleep-deprived. I've changed the chapter count to 6 and the final chapter will be posted either today or tomorrow, and will complete the series. i don't want to be too delayed for the event, so the final chapter should be a bit longer and sum up the fic.
> 
> also thank you very much for reading! <3

For the next week, all Yuusaku could think about was Ryouken. All he wanted to do was spend time with Ryouken. It seemed silly and strange when Ryouken rarely stayed in the same room as him, and for the most part Yuusaku sat on the floor and wiggled bits of rope or plastic balls back and forth trying to entice him out. It shouldn't have been fun at all. And yet found himself spending less time in Link Vrains—as his duel disk reminded him when it noted his weekly gaming hours—or even scrolling the web. He couldn't recall the last time he checked the forums. He'd been on Link Vrains, but only to duel with Takeru when he came over. The intentionality was lost on him too. He hadn't  _ tried  _ to stay away from Link Vrains for the ‘good of his health and wellbeing’ or whatever the tabloids were spouting these days. He simply found himself finding better things to do.

Currently, said 'better things to do' included lying stomach-down on the kitchen floor and wiggling a cat toy across the floor. Ryouken had taken a particular fancy to this toy with its elastic cord and large, squishy bauble shaped like a heart. He had tucked himself round the edge of the sofa, with only his little head poking out. It was enough for Yuusaku to see the intent gleaming in his blue eyes. He crouched low, irises wide—and then shot across the floor like a silver bullet, pouncing onto the toy. He flung himself onto his side, yanking the toy up to his jaws to deliver several sharp bites. Then, before the toy could bite him back, he charged back to his hiding place round the corner.

And so the game resumed. Yuusaku wiggled the toy each time, moving it across the tile flooring to entice Ryouken. Each time, he would launch himself onto the toy and bite it. It was a miracle the stuffing hadn't been yanked from the fabric casing, or the elastic had snapped from how often Ryouken yanked it towards him. But throughout the week the toy had held through—suffered damage, as seen in the ragged edges round the heart and the small hole through which cotton-white stuffing peeked. Nonetheless, Ryouken enjoyed the toy.

Ryouken crouched closer to the ground; Yuusaku could imagine his hind wiggling in anticipation.

"Ryouken~" he cooed.

_ Thump! _

Ryouken landed with both front paws on the toy. Once more he yanked it up, but this time, with the tile floor slippery, his legs gave out on him and he landed with a crash. His fur rose, but he clung to the toy—and glared at Yuusaku who stifled his laughter behind a fist.

"Silly cat. C'mere, onto the couch, it'll give you better grip."

He brought Ryouken onto the couch, dangling it over the side for Ryouken to playfully bat at. He liked toys that wriggled rather than hung or flew; in the wild, he would have been a cat skilled at hunting snakes or squirrels rather than birds. Still, Ryouken could jump. His powerful back legs kicked off from the couch cushion as he leapt into the air, catching the toy in his claws and tugging it to the ground. Each time, he bit down on the plush heart-shaped piece.

"Final kill," Yuusaku muttered.

As if Ryouken had understood him, he dipped down once more and clenched the toy between his teeth.

Yuusaku wiggled it free of his jaws. "You're not a dog, Ryouken. Give it here." He dangled it for Ryouken once more, and with his other hand reached for his duel disk. There were several e-mail notifications and Link Vrains updates, but he was more interested in the glowing alert from Takeru. Today they were going to take Ryouken to the vet for a check-up. They'd booked the appointment during the week after wondering whether or not Ryouken was all right. Though he seemed healthy and active, all the articles they'd read suggested check-ups for strays. He'd need vaccinations too since he wouldn't have gotten them as a kitten, and an anxious part of Yuusaku's mind imagined there would be  _ something  _ wrong with Ryouken, an undiagnosed illness or fleas or  _ something. _

He was going with Takeru though. From all the time Takeru spent at his place, Ryouken had developed a bond with him too, enough that he no longer panicked when the door opened and Takeru stepped in.

On cue, the door creaked open and Takeru's sunny voice called out, "Excuse me. Yuusaku! You're awake!"

He rolled his eyes and dropped the cat toy. "You say that with such surprise."

"Do I have any reason to be so surprised?"

"I went to bed at a decent time last night."

"Five?"

"Two."

Takeru's eyebrows shot into his head. "Then count me shocked. My bad."

Yuusaku rubbed at his head. Normally, it would have been five or later. But after a week of poor sleep and general tiredness, last night he had been lying on the couch debating what he wanted to do when Ryouken had climbed onto his chest and nestled down. It wasn't the first time he had sat on him, but the first time he had been up by his chest. Ryouken had made a little donut-shape with his body, white and fluffy like frosting. And fallen asleep.

He hadn't had the heart to move Ryouken and had fallen asleep then and there.

"It's fine," Yuusaku said. He turned to Ryouken who sat crouched on the back of the couch in a little loaf. Despite his relaxed posture, his ears were alert and tall like the tips of snow-capped mountains. Could he have known they were going to the vet? Surely a stray cat wouldn't even know what a vet was, but Ryouken watched them with the intensity of a hawk.

Takeru glanced from Yuusaku to Ryouken. "You think he figured it out?"

"Couldn’t have."

"You think he knows what that is?" Takeru pointed to the small plastic carrier they'd purchased at the pet store. It had been sitting in the corner of the room for several days without Ryouken even caring about it; the most he'd done was investigate it with a quick sniff, mark it as his own with a cheek rub, and then continue on with his day. But now that Yuusaku examined the situation closely, he noticed that Ryouken was at the opposite end of the room, and his eyes weren't just watching them but the box too.

"We won't frighten him," he told Takeru. "Treats first."

Takeru passed him the bag of chicken-flavoured treats. Yuusaku shook several into his hand and set two of them down on the back of the couch. Ryouken lifted his head, regarding him with all the suspicion of one promised with a too-grandiose gift. Nonetheless, he accepted the treats.

"Now what?" he heard Takeru say.

"Carrier."

The carrier was brought over and set down on the floor. Takeru propped the door open with a cup, and now interested, Ryouken leapt down to the investigate. He moved with caution, body low to the ground, ears pricked, tail rigid. His shoulders rolled with each step until he stood in front of the carrier. He sniffed it once, but it was obvious his interest was much more focused on the glass that Takeru had used to prop the door.

_ Really?  _ Yuusaku wanted to say.  _ Of all the interesting things to lure you over, the cup? _

"Should I push him in?" Takeru asked.

Yuusaku tossed him two treats. Takeru slipped them into the carrier, already prepared with a soft blanket. Two layers of newspapers lined the very bottom in case Ryouken had an accident; for a stray cat he had adjusted well to using a litter box, but if frightened he could have an accident. Once Takeru laid the treats inside, Ryouken poked his head in to investigate. Took another step.

"Close it," Yuusaku said, and Takeru locked the latch.

_ Mrr-ow! _

Ryouken spun around, pressing his face to the bars. He let out another meow, and then another—and then dragged his paws across the bars as an ungodly cry burst from his lungs. He sounded like he had been  _ stabbed.  _ Acted like it too as he scratched and the bars, letting out one shrieking cry after the other. Yuusaku's heart leapt into his chest and he crouched before the carrier, patting the bars.

"Ryouken, Ryouken," he said, trying to rub at his fur. "It's all right, promise, it's all right, you're fine."

No matter how soothingly he spoke, no matter where he rubbed Ryouken, he cried. His claws caught round the metal bars and tugged at the door, and the more fervently he scratched, the more anxious Yuusaku began to feel. He wasn't hurting Ryouken, but it felt like it. He wasn't torturing the cat, but by the way Ryouken cried and scratched he might as well have been. In all the videos he'd watched, the cats were  _ happy  _ once they were inside—or at least, they were if they were invited into the box without any pushing or prodding. Yet Ryouken acted like he had been forced into a cold, concrete prison against his will.

Yuusaku cradled the box in his arms, careful not to jostle Ryouken any more than necessary. It would only worry the cat further. Takeru helped him open doors and manoeuvre down the outside stairs, and out to the taxi parked along the curb. The driver waiting for them was kind and sociable, but Yuusaku found it hard to hear over Ryouken's incessant mews.

"He's not happy in there, is he?" the driver said, as if it wasn't clear just how much Ryouken hated the box.

Takeru scratched at his cheek. "First vet visit. He's a lil anxious."

"He a kitten?"

"No," Yuusaku said. He poked his fingers into the bars, trying to swipe at Ryouken's cheek to settle him. However, Ryouken had pushed himself into the back corner of the carrier and formed a small, defensive shape.

For the rest of the ride, Yuusaku didn't bother forcing small talk. He couldn't hear the driver anyways, and his mind was too preoccupied with calming Ryouken. He only lifted his gaze from the carrier when the taxi stopped out front of a quaint concrete building called "Den City Veterinary Practice." A large grassy area stretched in front of the building with benches for pet owners to settle on. Though there were windows, they only showed the lobby area which he saw was empty. He and Takeru had specifically booked an appointment at a quieter hour in case Ryouken would be startled by other animals.

He hoisted the carrier out of the taxi while Takeru paid the driver, and he carried Ryouken into the vet's office. Inside there were more benches to sit on and shelves filled with brochures and pet items. The desk separated the lobby from the examination rooms, and seated along it where two receptionists smiling at him.

"Ryouken," Yuusaku said, gesturing awkwardly to the cat. He paused, throat dry. "An appointment at nine o'clock."

The nearest receptionist, a kind-faced man, waved him over. "Ryouken for nine o'clock, all right. Just take a seat and the vet will call you over."

He settled down on the closest bench, balancing the carrier on his knees. Ryouken had yet to stop crying, but he had crawled closer to the front bars and peered through them with wide, anxious eyes. Yuusaku counted himself lucky no one else was in the waiting room with him, but the two receptionists offered him apologetic glances. When Takeru stepped into the room, he let out a sigh and poked a finger through the bars.

"He's still so sad ..."

Yuusaku's chest was too tight to let out an answer. He cradled the carrier to his chest. Rocking wouldn't soothe Ryouken. Neither did talking, cooing, or stroking. He was tempted to let Ryouken loose in the lobby, but without a leash, he could imagine the cat slipping into the tiniest corner and refusing to budge. That would only create more problems.

Finally, a veterinarian called his name. She waved him over and introduced herself as Miyu, and led him into one of the examination rooms down the hallway from the lobby. He'd expected the room to look like those in a doctor's office, and it was: sterile and white, with cupboards and drawers likely full of tools and equipment. However, instead of a patient bed wrapped in removable paper, there was a long, empty counter on which he set Ryouken's carrier. He hovered a hand over the bar, waiting for Miyu's acknowledgement.

She adjusted her white coat, smiling at him. "Well, let's see Ryouken here. He's quite a chatterbox, isn't he?"

Unsure whether she was complimenting or critiquing him, Yuusaku ducked his head. He popped open the door, arms ready for Ryouken to bolt out and shoot into a drawer or under a chair. However, nothing happened. Ryouken remained curled into the back of the box, as if not once since he entered the carrier had he wanted out.

"Bring him on out," Miyu said.

Yuusaku stared at her like she'd grown a second head. Just how was he supposed to even  _ reach  _ Ryouken?

Gently, Miyu reached into for Ryouken. With her other hand, she lifted the carrier and  _ tipped him out.  _ Neither Yuusaku nor Ryouken had been prepared for that, and poor Ryouken tumbled out of the carrier and onto the table. His paws slid across the countertop, struggling to grip the surface. Before he could get away, Miyu scooped him under the front paws and held him out.

"Here, you hold him too," she said.

Ryouken tugged away, crying.

"This is his first trip, isn't it? Don't worry, he's just a bit frightened. Now, hold him under his back end while I take his front. Ryouken, here, here, let's see your eyes and ears."

Yuusaku took Ryouken by the back legs, casting a confused glance to Takeru. He took his lizards to the vet ... maybe. But Takeru has settled back on the chair and was just watching Miyu like she was a pet whisperer. She could have been too. Yuusaku held Ryouken's back legs the way a new parent would hold an infant, but Miyu manoeuvred him as if this was her thousandth cat she'd held that very day. If Ryouken squirmed, she stroked him round the cheek and then lifted his lips to examine his gums. She twisted his head from side to side, never forcefully, but she still managed to look into his eyes and ears.

"Is this your first cat?" she asked, tilting Ryouken to the side and running his hands along his head and jaw.

Yuusaku nodded dumbly.

"And where did you get him from?"

"Street."

Miyu hummed. She walked her hands down his neck and to his shoulders, occasionally pinching or rubbing sections of skin and fur.

"So no known history of immunisations?"

"None."

"Well, we'll get that started for you then."

The offhand remark startled him. All morning he had prepared for some sort of critique, be it the fact that he took in a stray or that something during this week had caused irreversible damage to Ryouken.  He hadn't prepared a defense. After all, he had taken in the stray. He would take the blame for Ryouken's wellbeing. At night, even with the good sleep, he'd dreamt of the remarks the vet might say. Miyu said none of them though. She cooed at Ryouken as she rubbed each of his limbs and gently under his belly, being careful yet firm in an awe-inspiring sort of way.

"What food are you feeding him?"

He nearly said "the chicken-flavoured one," but caught himself and named off the brand.

"Is he active?"

"Playful ...?" Yuusaku said, and at Miyu's nod, he said, "He likes to run."

"A healthy boy. I'll get a cloth to wipe him down with—cat's tongues are strong but he won't be able to get the grime off him—but you're lucky there are no fleas or ticks on him. We don't get many here, but especially among strays, they like to bury into the warm fur. But he's healthy as can be!" She stroked him from head to tail, letting out one last coo, and then grabbed a damp cloth to rub over his fur. As she washed him, Yuusaku swore he heard Takeru say, "What a good idea—who else thought of this wonderful idea?" Unlike him though, Miyu could properly clean him. By the time she was done, Ryouken was  _ white.  _ Pristine, ivory white from head to tail, save for the dash of purple-blue over his brow. Yuusaku stroked the spot with his thumb.

"A lovely little mark he's got there," Miyu said. She gave her hands a quick pat onto her uniform and then turned round, opening various drawers and extracting several vials and a syringe. "I'll just get the vaccinations done, so hold him round the body and under his arms. There, just like that—and the needle will go right between his shoulder blades, all right? Yep, just like that."

Yuusaku had never been afraid of needles, but his heart tightened when he saw the needle slip into Ryouken's back fat. He checked him for any signs of distress, but other that periodically mewing, Ryouken seemed unfazed by what had just happened. When Miyu took the needle away and disposed of the tools, he only watched her with the same wary glance he had used when she'd stroked his face.

"That's that."

That was ... all?

"Those vaccinations need a booster in three weeks, and then they're good for the full year, so you'll book a follow-up appointment out in the office. As for Ryouken himself, keep him eating well and active—he's building up good weight and muscle, and his coat is clean and shiny."

"That's it ..." Yuusaku said, rolling the words off his tongue. Ryouken was fine. Healthy. Happy, despite his vocal protests throughout the day.

Miyu bounced her head up and down. "The receptionist will take if you have no more questions, all right?"

Takeru took him round the arm, and Yuusaku shook his head before he zoned out any further. He brushed Takeru off with a wave of his hand, and together they thanked Miyu. This time when they opened the carrier, Ryouken bolted back inside and settled against the furthest wall, fur raised. Yuusaku tickled him with his fingertips, smiling when Ryouken brushed his cheek in response.

"We're going home," he said. "Back home where you remember."

Chuckling, Takeru crouched down in front of the carrier and gave Ryouken one last rub. "You did good, buddy. Loud, but good."

Back in the lobby, a receptionist had prepared them a small, foldable booklet with Ryouken's immunisation records, along with his weight. "Bring this with you for vet appointments," she explained. "And then a payment please."

By the time they left, Yuusaku felt like it had been an hour, perhaps even more.

Thirty minutes, his duel disk read. Thirty minutes to learn that he hadn't caused any damage to Ryouken, that he was healthy and happy. Thirty minutes that he'd worried over for  _ days. _

Takeru clapped him once on the shoulder and then swung an entire  _ arm  _ over the same shoulder, tugging them close like they were two peas in a pod. Takeru was the only person who could hold him like that; he and Kusanagi had a different sort of relationship, and anyone else he kept on a strictly acquaintance level. But Takeru was the sort of friend who gave good hugs, the sort that injected the happiness pill into him, and Yuusaku leaned closer.

"I appreciate you coming with me," he said.

"This was experience for me too," Takeru said, giving him one last squeeze before walking in line, arms swinging. "Practice for me for when I get my kitty."

A chuckle rumbled in his throat. "Practice."

"Yeah," Takeru said, cheeks reddening. "I've never done this sort of thing before, not with cats, and well ... what if you say something stupid? So I wanted to see how you did it."

Takeru had been ... nervous? Takeru, who often rushed headlong into a situation, who always seemed to have boundless confidence. Yuusaku knew there were times he faltered, where he was gripped with fear so strong it held in like a bug between claws, but he hadn't considered that a  _ vet  _ would trigger such a feeling. But it made sense. Takeru had been quiet for the entire visit, watching Miyu handle Ryouken like a stuffed animal. He had been quiet even before then while they were waiting in the lobby to see the veterinarian. Yet he'd been wrapped up in his own anxieties, and it was only now that they were waiting at the curb for the taxi that Yuusaku realised how much straighter Takeru was standing, how calmer he seemed.

"It'll be just like that then ... when you get your own pet."

A sunny smile split across Takeru's face, and sunlight caught in the reds of his bangs. "I hope so too. I have so many names already picked up, but I can't choose one until I see the kitty—I have to know the name fits, and you can't tell until you see them and hold them close. But I have the food and treats already, and the bed, and ..."

In his hands, the carrier gave a gentle wobble. Ryouken let out a soft mew, no longer quite so frantic. He'd stopped clawing at the bars too. Through the air holes, Yuusaku could see he'd folded himself up onto one of the plush blankets and nestled his head between his paws. He was still tense, ears pricked—but not anxious. Carefully, Yuusaku poked a finger through the bars and stroked Ryouken's cheek.

His heart skipped a beat when he purred and rubbed back.


	6. Why You Should Definitely Get a Cat

Takeru came to pick him up after work. It shouldn't have surprised him considering Takeru had stopped by plenty of times—to see Kusanagi and the other kitties, to walk Yuusaku home and then see Ryouken, or simply just to hang out. There had only been one time this week that he hadn't hung out with Takeru, and now that he thought about it, he'd spent that evening online with Takeru. It had been the only day he was logged into Link Vrains too. Since there wasn't a tournament or event in progress, he hadn't bothered to log on any other time. Instead, he'd spent the evenings playing with Ryouken.

But even with the changes, even with the sudden recognition that there had been change to his once-repetitive life, Yuusaku still rubbed his eyes when he saw Takeru.

"What?" Takeru grinned, the apples of his cheeks rosy like an evening sunset.

Yuusaku turned away and undid the knot at the back of his apron. "We didn't plan anything for today ..."

"Are you busy?" Takeru asked. "I was wondering if you wanted to get something to eat after work, but if you need to hurry home or had something planned afterwards, I totally understand—"

"No, no, it's fine." Yuusaku cut him off with a wave of his hands. "Nothing planned, just ... nevermind." He pushed his sweaty bangs back and slipped off his apron. Takeru had left the side door open, and the fierce, winter chill scratched at his sweaty, blotchy skin. Despite the dousing of winter they'd received this week, complete with snow and frost, the truck remained unbearably warm during operation. He and Kusanagi wore loose t-shirts and pants and  _ still  _ felt the heat sticking to them like glue. Yet Yuusaku knew he needed to wear a jacket before he left work, and so he slipped on his parka, winced at the way it clung to his arms, and pulled his hood up.

Outside was a winter wonderland. A solid foot of snow had dropped last night onto the already-settled foot or two from the previous nights, and it made Den City look like it was wearing a woollen sweater. The roads and sidewalks had been cleared in most areas, but with nowhere else to push the snow, the city workers had bunched it up in towering piles. Most of these piles were five or six feet high, rising up from the snowy ground like mountains. He couldn't even see over them. As Yuusaku and Takeru headed home, they felt swallowed up by the white world.

Takeru had worn something warmer by his definition, but his winter clothing choice was little more than a fleece pull-over. His thick, red scarf looked to be the warmest piece of his attire, and it wrapped twice round his neck before cinching in a knot at the back. It muffled his words when he spoke too, and Yuusaku had to lean closer to hear him.

"Do you have anywhere in particular? Anywhere fancy?"

Yuusaku shrugged. "I normally just reheat food at home or take dinner from Kusanagi's, so ..." He wasn't well-versed in the art of proper food.

Takeru snorted out a laugh. "Yeah, me too. But!" He poised a finger high in the air, looking a little too pale from its usual fleshy tone; the cold had nipped the colour right out of it. "Kiku says there's a nice oden stall just down this road, I think, and warm food would do us good."

_ Would do you more good,  _ Yuusaku said, yet by the frigid clench of his jaws, he supposed even he needed to warm up. They turned down the sideroad, covered by the building walls that kept the wind from beating at their sides; the balconies over their heads provided meagre shelter. If it kept snow from slipping down his back, he had to count it as a blessing.

Down the alleyway was the oden truck, parked along the curb. They never came in grandiose design, often a wooden cart or stall covered by a flimsy awning. There would be a counter to sit in front of, and beyond it, a large cooking area comprised of various vats bubbling with broth, vegetables, and meat. This stall seemed even  _ smaller  _ by comparison, no wider than a wheelbarrow. There was room for both of them on the bench, but barely, and Yuusaku bumped shoulders with Takeru.

"Should we get it to go, maybe?" Yuusaku asked as he spotted Takeru halfway off the bench already.

"Maybe." Takeru ordered from the cook two styrofoam containers of oden. Takeru took one of everything, while Yuusaku stuck to the tsukune, basic meat stewed in the broth. As delicious as oden was during winter, the best part was that it was  _ warm,  _ and the meal heated his hands as they wandered back onto the main street and down towards the house.

Takeru slurped his with glee. He tried to eat while he walked, but unlike Yuusaku and the easily-pickable tsukune, eating boiled eggs and daikon while walking only made the broth drip down his chin and around his hands.

"Looks good," Yuusaku told him.

Takeru bumped him with his elbow, strong enough to give a playful warning. "Careful with that sharp tongue. You'll cut yourself." He bowed low over his cup and slurped the thin, white noodles. "I get my kitty tomorrow, you know?"

"Really?"

"Did Kusanagi not mention it?"

Throughout the entire shift, they'd spent much more time talking about every cat that had wandered into their lives. Yuusaku shared freely about all of Ryouken's blunders, from his adventures round the house to the time he'd fallen into the bath and soaked himself. He had video evidence of Ryouken's fascination with strings, and of his favourite water bowl, Yuusaku's cup. In turn, Kusanagi had dozens of videos of all the strays coming to eat each night. He was even considering making a DuelTube channel with daily vlogs of which cats came to visit him each day, and featuring audio commentary about each of the strays. But he hadn't mentioned Takeru's kitten.

"Which one?" Yuusaku asked.

Grinning from ear to ear, Takeru fetched his phone from his pocket and opened his photo gallery. A beautiful, black cat sat in front of one of Kusanagi's plates, looking far too regal. Despite the nighttime background and the use of flash, the cat was gorgeous—a little, black void with intense, amber eyes.

"Flame," Takeru said with a definitive nod of his head. "Kusanagi says I should call him "Blackie" or 'Midnight' or 'Yami' or whatever, but he  _ glows.  _ He's a  _ flame  _ in the night."

"Poetic," Yuusaku said with a laugh.

"Just like Ryouken," Takeru added with a cheeky smirk. He downed the last of his broth. "I might not be able to see him tonight though—need to get some last-minute stuff done before I take Flame home in the morning."

"In the morning?" The cats only came to see Kusanagi during the night.

"He's keeping the cat if he shows up tonight, which he should. I would take him tonight, but since we don't know if he'll make an appearance, we're thinking tomorrow. And that way I can take him right to the vet to get immunised before he comes home."

"He looks nice," Yuusaku said, turning towards his apartment. He sighed when he only saw darkness. "Ah, forgot to leave the light on." Any other day, his living room light glowed like the beacon of a lighthouse. He would leave the light on for Ryouken during the day despite knowing that cats could see in the dark. Something about leaving the light on made the room feel ... homey. And he liked to see Ryouken when he first opened the door without having to search blindly for the switch. Not today though.

He and Takeru climbed the stairs. Yuusaku jiggled the key open and stuck out a leg in case Ryouken was waiting for him. He heard a mewl, then the thump of feet. When he flicked the light on, he swore he saw Ryouken dash around the bedroom door.

"Ryouken, it's me," he said. He shook the snow from his hair, letting it dust the genkan like icing sugar.

Takeru patted bits of it from his shoulder. "With all this snow, he probably couldn't see us. He must've thought we were some snowmen."

Yuusaku batted the top of Takeru's head, knocking free a hat of snow. "You look like it."

"Well it won't do any good now—I have to head back."

Yuusaku eyed the doorway to make sure Ryouken hadn't slipped away, and then turned back to Takeru. "I see."

"But I'll be online tonight," Takeru said. "If you want to duel."

He hadn't played much this week, but a gaming evening sounded nice. Ryouken would stand in front of his screen and step on all his keyboard keys, and for a small cat he'd be the greatest bastard ever, but it would still be a fun evening. With the oden broth sitting warm in his belly, he looked forward to a night sprawled out under the couch, curled up with a cat and a blanket and his laptop.

"But go find Ryouken and make sure I didn't frighten him!" Takeru gave him a quick push on the shoulders and slipped out the door. "See you!"

He hadn't even seen Ryouken poke his head around the corner, but perhaps he was being shy today. Yuusaku dusted the snow from his jacket and boots, and left them crumpled in a wet heap for him to deal with later. In the bedroom, he found the room quieter than a mouse. Ryouken did not emerge.

"Ryouken, come on out. It was just me." He knelt down and peered under the bed. He'd vacuumed recently, so not even a dust mite could hide Ryouken. But there was nothing down there: no dust or cat. Yuusaku pressed his lips together and peered atop the bed. Not once had he seen Ryouken sleep on the mattress or curl under the covers, but he patted down the sheets for any strange lumps. Again, nothing.

"Ryouken?"

An inkling on anxiety filled his chest.

He marched back into the living room, searching round the living room and kitchen. As silly as it seemed, he had to check the cupboards and drawers to make sure, and under the desk and table too. The curtains were pulled back to reveal the nighttime sky, and often Ryouken would sit up there; the sizable amount of white cat hair was proof. But he hadn't even snuck round the curtains and curled up for a rest.

The apartment was small; Yuusaku could cross the largest room in six steps. There wasn't much furniture to hide behind, but Ryouken must have found a truly invisible spot.

He knew better than to panic, but the fear gripped him.

He grabbed the treats bag and gave it a firm shake. Then another. The plastic bag crinkled round his cold fingers, but no cat shot out to meet him. Ryouken knew what treats were, and what the bag sounded like. He should have coming run like a child to candy, seized by some primal force to  _ devour the food. _

But he didn't.

He didn't appear at all.

"Ryouken!" Yuusaku marched round the house, shaking the bag until the treats became crumbs. "Out, Ryouken!"

Not a peep.

He was past playing dumb. Past being hopeful. Ryouken had slipped outside, into the freezing winter, and ran away.

Yuusaku rushed to the front door, yanking on his wet shoes and jacket. The fabric stuck even more to his skin, now chilled from walking outdoors and stalking round the house. His shoes squelched with each step. But it didn't matter. He braved the outdoors, throwing open the front door. Were it a miracle, Ryouken would have been waiting for him on the front step, cold but in one piece. However, what awaited him beyond the door was a dark night. Where the light touched the sidewalk illuminated heavy patches of snow. He and Takeru had been walking not an hour ago, and yet another  _ foot  _ or more of snow seemed to have dropped upon Den City. He'd never seen such a white winter in his life, all eighteen years of it.

It had become windier too, blustery breezes knocking aside the snow in great swells. Naturally, the snow was replaced aplenty. A true, terrible storm, the likes that Den City had never seen.

He ran down the stairs, sweeping the snow from the handrails. His feet hit ice rather than concrete when he landed on the ground. From all the falling snow, a thick layer of ice had formed underneath. He squinted through the storm to see any footprints leading out, but whether from the snow or the wind, any trace had been extinguished. Yuusaku couldn't even see a foot in front of him.

"Ryouken!"

He had shoved the treat bag into his pocket it all his haste, and he rattled it out front of the apartment. Ryouken was smart. He shouldn't had treaded far at all. But he doubted even a cat's strong sense of hearing and smell could pick up chicken-treats over the wind.

Marching ahead, Yuusaku followed the snow out to the road. The street lamps were covered in a thick, white layer, and what yellowish light did break through only illuminated the tiniest flecks of snow. No footprints, not even his or Takeru's from their walk back from the oden truck.

Just where could Ryouken had run off to?

A bright light shot in front of him—yellow light, too bright—

Yuusaku toppled back into a snowbank just as a bus rumbled past. He watched it disappear a second later into the fog. In the blink of an eye, he was alone again. Cold too. The snow was  _ wet  _ and sinking into his already-damp jacket. He'd forgotten both a hat and gloves, and every extremity burned. He'd never had frostbite before, but the whiteness to his fingertips looked much like it. Deep within his lungs came a crackling cough. A sob. He choked it down and pushed off from the snowbank.

He needed to find Ryouken.

Needed to think.

Needed to stop spinning awful tales in his head, circular arguments that only dampened his morale. Ryouken couldn't have gone far. Wouldn't have either. But then would he go back to Kusanagi's? Had he run away or merely slipped out?

With shaking fingers, Yuusaku opened his duel disk. The touch-sensitive screen glitched as he tried to operate it with bloodless fingers. All the heat in his body had been stripped away by the wind and snow. In his ears, his teeth chattered with the force of a gun. He'd smash his teeth in his mouth if he stayed out any longer. Yet he couldn't—he couldn't leave Ryouken.

He jammed his finger down on the call button. When Kusanagi picked up, he sounded genuinely surprised.

"Yuusaku?"

"Kusa—Kusanagi, Ryouken is gone."

Kusanagi shifted the microphone, making a vague rustling sound. Far away, he said, "Be right back, kitties, Daddy is coming back," and then the microphone crackled. The next words came out clearly. "Where's the last place you saw him?"

"Home," Yuusaku said at once, and then paused. "He had to have been home."

"So he got out." Kusanagi hummed, more of a thoughts-loading noise than a criticism, but Yuusaku felt like the words had stabbed him through the gut. "Did you see him when you left?"

He had. Ryouken always sat on his computer and watched him go.

"And when you got back?"

It had been dark, but he had seen something white, a tail ...

Kusanagi didn't speak up.

"Could he have gone far?" Yuusaku asked. "I'm already out looking for him."

"In this weather?" Kusanagi tsked. "I'll come out too—"

"No, it's fine—"

"Then I'll make a call to the rescue shelter for you. They look for lost pets. Is he microchipped?"

"... no."

Kusanagi continued on regardless. "That's fine. They'll share the information with other vets, I think."

Yuusaku chewed on his lip. Kusanagi was guessing. He was guessing. They were all at loss, and he felt his limbs begin to sink deeper into the snow. How could he keep looking for Ryouken through this snow? Going inside would be admitting defeat. Going in would never find Ryouken. But out here, in the midst of Den City's wildest storm, was there even a chance?

"Yuusaku, it's going to be fine."

He nodded, and then spoke. "All right."

"Where are you? I'll come out to you, give me just five minutes—"

"No." His voice cracked and he cleared it roughly. "No, Ryouken might ... might come back to you."

"All right. But you're home now, aren't you? Or just outside it?"

"I think so." He couldn't see through the thicket. Snowflakes clung to his eyelashes and melted on his lips. As wet as he felt, there was a dry itch too. The cold was sinking through his clothing layers and settling against his skin. He knew far too little about cold, frostbite, or hypothermia, but as his mind spun with wild ideas, he supposed he might as well panic about the cold too. Yet if he was cold, what was Ryouken feeling? He was smaller. Thinner. The vet had told him he still needed to put on a pound or two. A cat wouldn't be able to brave these temperatures, would it?

"I'll call you in a bit," Kusanagi said. "But it'll be all right, Yuusaku. Promise."

He ended the call with a single, shaking finger. The duel disk slid back into the wet pocket, uncomfortably sticky against his thigh. The snow had clumped round his feet, and he had to pull himself out like he was uprooting his own limbs. His teeth chattered in his head, ever incessant and painful. The wind was silent now—nothing was louder than his shivering and chattering.

"Ryou—Ryouken!"

Nobody answered.

He headed into the opposite direction, down the road towards the city. There was no rhyme or reason towards Ryouken heading  _ anywhere,  _ but he supposed if he ought to look, he might as well search the roads. The benches and garbage cans had been covered in snow, leaving no space for Ryouken to hide under. Trees were hidden too. Unless Ryouken had dug himself an igloo and curled up to hide, he likely wouldn't have stopped. But searching for a white cat in a snowstorm was akin to locating a faulty line of code in an entire program. It didn't just  _ feel  _ impossible; it  _ was. _

He wanted to give up. Walk back, head hung, body weary.

But he couldn't give up, not on Ryouken. Not on the cat he had taken under his wing. Not on the special creature that had found  _ him  _ too.

The road travelled far through the suburbs, branching off to smaller subdivisions and apartment complexes. He checked behind garbage dumpsters and under the drooped awnings of entryways. Ryouken was nowhere in sight. If he was a cat, he would have sought out shelter. A warm place would have been his top priority. But the storm had doused any safe abode in a foot-thick layer of  _ ice and snow.  _ There was no warmth.

And when there was, it came in the surprising presence of another figure. Yuusaku hadn't been walking fast, but all at once the stranger had appeared before him, and he smacked into the other person. The force knocked them both to the ground, with the snow cushioning their falls. Yuusaku scrambled back up to his feet, blurting out a hasty, "Sorry!"

His surprise only increased as he saw Takeru sitting across from him, snow clumping in the white and red of his hair. Takeru's pale face split into a wide grin.

"Found you!"

"Wha—"

"I've been looking everywhere in this storm for you," Takeru said, gathering himself to his feet and brushing snowflakes from his jacket. He offered a hand down to Yuusaku who accepted it with a mixture of relief and confusion. He'd expected Kusanagi to find him out here—but this was nowhere near Takeru's house, and he'd said he was heading home to prepare for the new kitten.

"I haven't seen any footprints."

Yuusaku blinked. "Kusanagi told you?"

"About Ryouken? Yeah." Takeru scanned the area; they couldn't see more than a foot or two in front of them, and the weak lamplight was fading into the growing shadows. With each second, the neighbourhood became a little darker. Dimmer. Yet Takeru  _ glowed. _

"Have you wandered far?" Takeru asked, dusting off his bangs. "Are we far from your house?"

"Five minutes." At most. Yuusaku felt like he'd been trampling through the snow all night. His bare skin itched and his muscles ached. The adrenaline had long since seeped from his muscles.

Takeru's clapping hand on his shoulder stirred the last of his energy into his limbs.

"He wouldn't have gone far. He followed you home, remember?"

Yuusaku bit at his bottom lip, tasting irony blood. "In the storm ..."

"What would he do?"

"Seek shelter." Any intelligent creature wouldn't run amuck in a storm like this. Ryouken probably escaped, realised his mistake, and then sought out a warm hiding place. Would he have gone far then? Down the road? It was a long trek to Cafe Nagi, so perhaps he hadn't gone that way. The city would be covered but busy ...

"Do you think he knows where your house is?" Takeru asked. "Would he be able to smell it?"

"He wouldn't have gone far." Breath whooshed from his clenched lungs. "He's back home—" He grabbed Takeru's arm and tugged him forward. The thick snow blew against their frozen faces, pushing them back into the snow dunes, but Yuusaku pressed on regardless. No deep snow would hinder him. No biting winds either. He ducked his head and marched on, until at last he saw the dim light of his house. The snow had brushed up against the walls and covered the first step leading up to the balcony, yet there were still nooks and crannies under the balcony, under the stairs.

"Ryouken!"

Takeru cupped his hands round his mouth. "Ryouken, here, kitty!"

Only the wind answered.

Yuusaku clenched his jaw and marched under the awning. Ryouken wouldn't come out in this weather. He was hiding. But he searched regardless, yanking at boxes stacked outdoors and round the shed used to store the landlord's belongings. At the edge of the property was the small communal field, often used in the summer for soccer or picnics or outdoor activities. The once-green field was monochrome and empty. A single, wooden bench stood at the furthest point, dumped on with heaps of snow that it no longer resembled a bunch but an oddly-shaped mound. Miraculously, the snow hadn't clumped under the bench; there was just enough of a gap to crawl under. Tucked within the opening was a shivering, off-white patch of snow.

Yuusaku  _ ran.  _ His feet never stopped moving until he fell to his knees before the bench. Ryouken had tucked himself on the thinnest patch of snow, holding his body up with his little feet and keeping his belly and head as warm as he could. He didn't lift his head as Yuusaku reached into the gap and rubbed his finger across his cheek.

"Ryouken?"

He was moving. Barely, but his sides rose and fell with each breath.

_ You've got fur,  _ he wanted to say. Fur to keep him warm. Fur to keep him alive.

"Ryouken?"

He reached out and took the cat into his hands. Full grown, he was still little more than hollow bones and feather-light fur, not the sturdy weight of a cat. He was shivering too, though whether from his own chill or from Yuusaku's trembling hands, he couldn't discern. Gently, he brought the cat into his arms.

Takeru fell down on his knees next to him. "He was there all along!"

Yuusaku pulled Ryouken closer. "Come on, back inside." As he pushed himself up onto his legs, he winced. Hot agony seared his calves. Cold wind nipped back at him. Yuusaku clung to Ryouken for dear life, pressing him close to his chest as he stumbled back up the stairs and into the house. The first feeling of warm air felt like an iron to his cheek. He gasped, tumbling into the wall.

"How long were you out out there for?" he heard Takeru mutter, but more clearly, Takeru said, "Come on, let's wrap him up. You've got a blanket on the couch."

He didn't bother kicking off his wet shoes as he grabbed the blanket. Ryouken rubbed his face into the cloth, over and over again, as if he were trying to re-mark it with his wet scent. Bits of damp fur stuck up like porcupine needles. Soon, more followed. Yuusaku brushed his fur backwards with his hands to warm him up and dry him. Any other time, Ryouken wouldn't have appreciated such a rough handling, but he seemed to know what he needed. At the moment, his only thought was staying warm.

The snow had already begun to melt from his head, pooling around him. Yuusaku brushed a hand over his clammy brow and sniffled into his hand.

A heavy blanket fell over his head and shoulders. "Warm yourself up too," Takeru said.

Yuusaku blinked up at him.

With a fervent jostle, Takeru rubbed the blanket over his sopping hair. Yuusaku's head rolled from side to side with the force. All the while, Takeru laughed deep in his throat. To laugh in such a situation would have seemed inappropriate were it not Takeru—but it was, ever kind, ever helpful. Yuusaku didn't have to worry about taking care of himself while he dried and warmed Ryouken. Within minutes, the cat was fluffy and white once more.

Ryouken leapt up from the blankets, shaking and twisting like he had a bug on his back. He licked at his wet fur, bristled like tree pines, all the while glaring icy daggers.

Only then did Yuusaku breathe a sigh of relief.

The towel dropped from round his head and settled on his shoulders.

"Look, Yuusaku! He's fine!"

An awful nag in the back of his mind said otherwise, but it was wrong. It had to be. Ryouken's eyes had become clearer and his fur warmer, and there was even a spot of heat from where Ryouken sat on his lap. He was safe and healthy and all right, and Yuusaku had no words to say. He stroked Ryouken under the chin and heard a clear, merry purr.

"I'll tell Kusanagi to call off the search," Takeru said, patting him on the shoulder. He retrieved his duel disk and made the call; Yuusaku could hear him across the room telling Kusanagi, "Oh yes, he's safe, warm too, and happy! Yes, we'll tell you all about it another time, I'm sure. Thank you for the search and the call, all right? Yes, you too, take care."

Ryouken's jaws opened in a wide yawn. He curled into a snowball shape, with only the fleck of blue-purple marking that he  _ wasn't  _ some leftover snow that had fallen from Yuusaku's head. The cat's breaths were steady, body warm. If he hadn't been wandering out in the frigid winter, Yuusaku wouldn't have known Ryouken had even left the house.

"He'll be all right, won't he?" Takeru leant over the back of the couch, threading his hands together. They were shaking too.

Yuusaku nodded, stroking Ryouken from head to tail. "He won't go outside either."

"That might have been me," Takeru said, dipping his head in apology. "The door was open ..."

"I didn't think he would leave. It's fine."

"Are you OK?"

Yuusaku blinked. Why wouldn't he be?

Somehow, his gaze conveyed what Takeru wanted to hear. He smiled and pushed off from the couch. "Of course you are. Now, if everything is all right ..."

"You'll go back out?" Yuusaku blurted out. In the cold? In the middle of the storm after Takeru had already braved it to find him. He shook his head and nodded to the bathroom door. "Take a shower, at least. Get warm."

Takeru had been over plenty of times before, but his stare was nothing shy of incredulous. "You—you don't mind—"

"I'll mind more if you make a big deal out of it. Besides, don’t you want to see Ryouken?"

Takeru could only laugh at that. He bowed his head in one last thanks and then hurried off to the bathroom. Yuusaku turned towards Ryouken, still settled on his lap. With the towel round his shoulders and a warm, curled-up cat on his legs, his chest grew warmer every second. Only his fingers and toes felt cold—and his fingers he nestled under the blankets Ryouken was still wrapped in. Like an infant, he slept on.

Gently, Yuusaku rubbed at his cheek, and Ryouken leant back into his touch, letting out a gentle, rumbling purr.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and the fic is complete! considering i had none of these chapters prepared before the start of the event, i'm surprised I managed to _mostly_ keep up with the event (just two days late, that's not too bad!) i had plenty of fun writing something so soft and fluffy, and thank you to Hunter13Hawkie for the idea!  
> leave a comment if you'd like - thank you! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment down below if you'd like, and poke me over at [tumblr](https://lily-liegh.tumblr.com/ask) too!


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